


Whumptober 2018

by jessicagoddamnjones



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Complete, Fluff, Gen, Hurt Peter Parker, Hurt Tony Stark, Iron Dad, NOT STARKER - Freeform, Other, Parent Tony Stark, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Precious Peter Parker, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Whump, Whumptober 2018, anti starker, finished work, spider son
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-01
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-07-23 17:09:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 31
Words: 46,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16163240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jessicagoddamnjones/pseuds/jessicagoddamnjones
Summary: 31 days, 31 prompts, 31 ways for your favorite father/son duo to watch each other get hurt.Happy Halloween, stans.





	1. Stabbed

**Author's Note:**

> Day 1: stabbing. 
> 
> Follow me on tumblr if you want to scream with me about our favorite idiots: jessicagoddamnjones
> 
> THIS IS NOT EDITED AND I HATE IT AND IT SUCKS BUT I’M JUST GOING TO GET BETTER RIGHT???

“Ow—ow—ow—ow— _shit_!” Peter breathed sharply through his clenched teeth, hopping from foot to foot and clenching his fists.

“You seem to be experiencing a great deal of pain.” Karen’s voice was like nails on a chalkboard to Peter. His senses were going out of control; they were trying to simultaneously assess the damage done to him and alert him to any approaching dangers. It was like having a thousand tiny, blood-thirsty mosquitoes attacking him from all angles. “Would you like me to call Mr. Stark?”

”No!” Peter pressed one hand to the wound in his side and used the other (plus his feet) to begin climbing up the wall to his left.

He nearly gagged. It was the smell of rotten eggs, human shit, animal guts, and twelve year old boys who used Axe body spray in lieu  of showering all at once. Not to mention he could feel every disgusting _bump_ and _nick_ in the bricks. Even on good days he hated patrolling in the slums of New York, but he did anyways, because that was generally where the trouble was at.

“Sorry Peter, but the Boo-Boo Protocol informes Mr. Stark of any injuries he deems require his attention. He’s already on his way.”

 He froze on the wall. “Two things. One, what injuries does he _deem important_ , and two, I thought it was called the Band-Aid Protocol!”

”It used to be, but then he changed it after you refused to fall back in the March battle. For a while, it was actually called the Skinned-Knee Protocol, then he felt you were maturing and changed it to the Band-Aid Protocol, and now it’s the Boo-Boo Protocol.”

Peter Parker groaned and rested his forehead against the wall. Then he immediately dry heaved and held himself as far away as possible from it without altogether falling off. The stench seemed to have mated with his blood to creat the ultimate _Fuck Peter Parker_ stink. “That’s so not fair. What about my first question?”

Karen’s artificially cheerful voice said, “He has an ever-growing list of injuries, illnesses, and medical symptoms that are to be checked by me regularly and sent to him. In the case of a battle injury, like this one, I immediately contact him and send your vitals.”

To be honest, he kind of liked that she called it a ‘battle injury’. Made him feel all cool. It helped the humiliation of knowing that _Tony Stark_ , billionaire, genius, and already-stressed-out-enough- _Superhero_ was being forced to take the time out of his busy schedule to come get him. Like he was a child who had misbehaved at school.

Although, it wouldn’t have been the first time Mr. Stark picked up Peter from Midtown.  

Man, that was a weird day.

Sighing in resignation, Peter began to crawl down the wall, stopping every few minutes to blink away the black spots in his eyes because _oh yeah, he had been stabbed._  

“Hey, uh, Karen?”

”Yes, Peter?”

”Do you have a time estimate on how long until Tony gets here? It’s just that I’m kind of bleeding, um, a lot, and actually I think it’s slowing down—you know what, just ignore me, keep doing your thing, pretend I didn’t say anything.”

”Certainly, Peter. Mr. Stark will be here in three minutes.”

Oh, Karen. Peter loved her to death, but she was just a bit more intuitive than he would have chosen.

 _Ok, Peter_ , he tried to reason with himself. _It won’t be that bad. It’s just a small little knife wound, he probably won’t even notice it, there’s nothing to be embarrassed about_.  

The humiliation of letting a petty street robber stab him was bad enough. If Mr. Stark had to bear witness to that, it would be even worse.

Distantly, like the sound of a blender making a banana smoothie, he heard Iron-Man’s suit come ever closer.

By the time the teen made it onto the ground, Tony was flying over the top of the building and landing right next to him.  

“Peter, kid, seriously, I leave you alone for two seconds, and this happens? Can you not be trusted to take care of yourself anymore? Is that it?” Tony stepped out of his armor with all the grace of a man who’s done it a million times before. He quickly scanned the boy, relief soothing his slamming heart when he saw that he could at least stand by himself. When the engineer got the alert from Karen, he had dropped what he was doing (literally, the lab was going to be an absolute bitch to clean up when he returned) and called for his quickest suit.

Peter felt shame burn his cheeks as he regretfully took off the mask so he could speak to Tony face to face. His mentor was still in his normal clothes, for Christ’s sake! Peter must have interrupted his entire evening, he thought with a deep whelm of guilt. 

“Sorry, Mr. Stark. Really, I am! It won’t happen again, I promise—and there’s really no reason for you to be here, anyways, I’m fine, one hundred percent,” he rushed to assure him. Oh, shit, the wound was starting to feel _cold_ now. That couldn’t be good.

Tony raised an eyebrow. “You think you can fool me? I _invented_ lying to parents. Karen told me you were losing lots of blood, buddy. Let’s see it.” When Peter merely stared blankly, Tony stepped forward and gently waved his hand in front of his face. 

Worry seized Tony like a vicious snake hiding in the bushes, wrapping around his heart and choking the nonchalantness he had cloaked over his shoulders. “Okay, you got me,” he said, faux cheerful, “I’m not angry. Are you okay?” 

Despite the fact that Peter literally couldn’t feel his left side, and he had a massive headache, and the entire alleyway made his supper want to throw a riot, Peter was only truly focused on the fact that Tony had just, in his own little way, called himself his parent. 

 _Probably shock_ , he reasoned. _I got stabbed and now I am focusing on tiny things so I don’t focus on my body shutting down_.

“Well, thas kind of a funny story, M’ser Shtark.” Peter was slurring his words like a college kid, but at least he was talking. He sucked in a huge breath to help him and, “I may, or may not, but definitely am leaning way towards may, because I love her, have been stabbed. Lightly. With an itsy-bitsy knife.”

”You were stabbed?” 

”Why do you not think this’s as funny as I did?”

”Oh, my—how long ago were you stabbed?” Tony stepped forward and put an arm around Peter’s shoulders, leading him forward until he could sit down, curled into the older man like an echo taken human form.  

Peter tried to calculate through the fuzz in his mind. “Ten minutes? I dunno. Not that long. Hey, do you smell diapers? B’cause I smell diapers.”

”Yeah that’s me, I didn’t have time to change it before I left, don’t judge.” Tony tried to distract the younger boy while he pried off Peters fingers (Jesus, they were covered in his own blood, it made him want to gag) to examine the wound. He sucked in air through his teeth at the festering skin. “That’s not pretty.” There was a sort of forced lightness to his words, a coolness only decades of hurt could produce. “Yeah, you’re coming with me. Hold on, here. I’m gonna set you down, okay, Pete? Just don’t fall asleep on me, that’s bad manners.”

Tony all but threw himself into the suit. He usually relished the feeling of cool titanium sliding over him, able to withstand the toughest challenges, able to hide his deepest fears; but tonight _Peter_ was hurt, _his_ Peter, and while he wanted nothing more than to feel the familiar comfort of his skin warming his (usually while the younger was curled up in the older’s lap), he had to get him back to the Tower, ASAP, pronto, double time, stat. 

He careful scooped up Peter’s body (was he always this tiny?) and shot into the air. “Fri, can you get me his vitals?”

”Sure, boss.”

There was a pause as his AI did her job, and Tony thought of a million different ways tonight could have been avoided. 

One: Tony should’ve checked Peter’s typical routes when he got the text that the spiderling was about to go patrolling.

Two: Literally anything else.

”His blood levels are low, pulse is slowing, temperature is high, no signs of infection yet, and no other injuries except for minor bruising around the ribs. Would you like me to contact Dr. Banner and inform him that Peter needs assistance?”

”Yeah, that’s a smart move. Keep me updated, okay?”

“Affirmative, boss.”

When the engineer dared a look down, he almost slammed into the side of a giant billboard (which came out of nowhere, he swears). Was Peter supposed to look so still? So perfectly lifeless? So— _dead_?

He gave him a worried shake. “Still with me, kiddo? Can’t have you bailing on me now, we haven’t finished that radiation energy project we started! Or that new robot I finally let you build. Remember how long you begged me to let you build one? You still need to name that, by the way. Can’t have a robot going ‘round with no name, that’s how villains are born. How bout Stark two-point-oh? Is that a good name? What do you think, Spiderboy?”

Peter cracked open an eye and parted his lips to croak out, “ _Lame_ ,” before falling right back into the same wax like state he was in before. 

 _Peter Benjamin Parker holy shit if you came back from the dead just to insult me one last time I will drop you off a building, so help me God, Amen_. Tony managed a smile and sped up as fast he could when he saw the Tower’s signature glow in the skyline. 

 _So goddamn close_.

“Blood pressure low. Pulse low. Skin temperature now dropping. Dr. Banner is waiting in the Medbay with everything good to go. Your power levels are dropping as well.”

”Forget about the power levels,” Tony snapped. “Does Banner know about the recent vitals?”

”I’m informing him now, Mr. Stark.”

”Thanks, Fri.”

Finally, finally, finally, Tony landed in the Medbay. There was a cot already waiting just inside the doors, and he gratefully dumped Peter on it so he could walk out of the suit. 

There was Bruce now, grabbing the cot and wheeling it away, talking over his shoulder. “Do you happen to have the knife used?”

”Why would I have that, Banner? Do you think I wanted to frame it and give it to Peter for his birthday? Actually, hang on, that might be something there—FRIDAY, you get that?”

”I’ll add it to the birthday list, boss.” 

“Tony, for someone who was so frantic just five minutes ago, you sure are calm about it now.” Bruce was checking Peter’s heartbeat while teasing Tony.

Tony sniffed and walked forward to peel the top half of Peter’s suit off, baring his chest. He nearly gagged when he saw the blood coating his side. “He seemed fine when I first showed up, I mean, he was talking and everything. It was only about two minutes after I showed up that he started to get . . . Like this.”

Banner handed Tony an antiseptic wipe and turned to start gathering materials. “I can’t say anything for sure until after I see more, but it could be a lot of things.”

Wiping the blood off the limp boy’s side, Tony sucked in a breath and started talking on instinct to distract himself. “Oh, do tell, Doc.”

”Um, it could be shock. It could be his healing factor shutting down some parts of his body to spend more energy on the main wound. Hell, this could be what happens when a panic attack mixes with a physical attack. I don’t know!” 

Tony crumpled up the wipe, soiled with blood, and tossed it to the side. He grabbed another one and just kept on wiping, wiping, wiping away his kid’s blood.

Before he knew it, he was being shoved aside and Banner was pouring something over the wound. 

 “What can I do to help? What—what can I do?”

Bruce looked up at the engineer, his eyes slightly pitying. “No offense, but you aren’t a doctor. The last time you helped in a surgery, you literally put a car battery in your chest.”

”Nothing you just said is true, and I am absolutely remembering it when the holidays come by, you two-timing whore.”

The doctor sighed and went back to prepping Peter. “Call May. Get some sleep. Don’t panic.” 

Tony groaned. “I really don’t want to leave Peter . . .”

“Then go call May from over there!” Bruce flung a finger to the wall and ignored every one of Tony’s further complaints.

_Peter Parker, your ass is going to be in so much trouble when you wake up._


	2. Bloody Hands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day two of Whumptober is bloody hands. Enjoy :)
> 
> Foeedback is amazing and I’m thirsty for it so comment if you want to thanks boo

Tony liked to make lists. He made a list for everything he could think of, because there was quite a lot going on in his life, and it was rather important to keep it organized.

There was the list of injuries Karen should immediately contact him for when Peter got hurt, one for all of Pepper’s favorite books, one for all the best restaurants that never recognized him in New York, and a list for everything that made him completely, utterly, irrevocably lose his shit.

And as Peter Parker walked into his lab with blood coating his hands like gloves, he mentally added another item to that list of things that made him lose his shit: Whatever just happened to Peter.

He didn’t even notice it at first, because he was drawing on a whiteboard in messy shorthand. Tony had barely tuned into the world long enough to accept Peter’s request to enter the lab, transmitted via FRIDAY. When he heard the doors open and then shut, he kind of expected Peter to start the conversation. He usually did. 

After ten straight seconds of silence, Tony grew worried. He capped the marker and turned around, “Heya, Pete, which is it this time: you left your homework here or you have a super-secret-but-totally-awesome idea that needs to be shared immediately? You know, you could just start admit that you miss me, it’d save us both a lot—“

Peter was standing in the middle of the lab, looking rather lost, rather rumpled, and rather _bloody_.

”Kid?” For a moment, he couldn’t move. He could only stare at the young boy in horror. Then his brain kicked in— _hello_ there, common sense—and he ran over, already ordering FRIDAY to scan him. “Pete? Peter? You okay? What happened? Can you speak? Are you hurt? How did—“

”Peter is showing signs of shock, but has no external or internal injuries. The blood does not match his.” FRIDAY rarely interrupted Tony, but it was increasingly obvious that he wouldn’t stop speaking until he either passed out or got some answers.

His heart twinged. “Oh, Peter.” Tony grabbed his shoulders gently and guided him over to a chair. 

Dum-E was already rolling over, a water bottle balanced in its makeshift paw.

Peter drank the water easily enough, but he still didn’t speak. Tony didn’t pressure him; he just kept on handing him the water bottle and wincing at his hands at regular intervals. 

Finally, Peter opened his mouth. “It’s not my blood.”

Tony already knew this, but he was relieved anyways.

”It’s not even a good guy’s blood. There was this—this robber, or something. And I guess he got cut on some glass when I kicked him. He isn’t even _dead_. But, uh, but I saw he was bleeding—like a lot. A lot. So I went over and tried to stop the blood. That’s where I got _this_.” He held up his hands, where the blood was now _drying_ , for fucks sake. “Eventually I used my webs to stop it. But after, I was getting back into my regular clothes, and I guess the blood wouldn’t get into the suit? I thought it wouldn’t actually _be on_ me. But it was. Um. And I kind of just thought of my Uncle Ben.”

Tony felt like crying. His _Uncle_ , of _course_ , how could he have been so _stupid_? Peter had watched him die—had held him while he died! There’s no telling what that kind of trauma could do on a kid.

Peter sniffed. He carefully pulled his sweater sleeve down over one of his incriminating hands and used it to wipe at his face. “M’sorry to come in like this, Mr. Stark. I just didn’t want Aunt May to see me like this. Didn’t want her to panic.” He avoided eye contact when he said, “I was kind of freaking out. I—I was about to have a panic attack, and I needed something to distract me, and I really am sorry to interrupt your work, but the Tower was nearby and—and—and—“

”Peter, buddy, it’s all right!” Tony smoothed the younger boy’s hair out of his face. “I don’t mind, not at all. In fact, I’m _glad_ you came here. I was getting awfully bored ‘till you showed up. Come on, up you get, let’s wash this off, okay? No need to let the past get you down.”

The young hero nodded mutely as Tony led him over to the sink that was mainly used for washing chemicals and grease off. The inside paint was peeling off from all the acidic liquids it had been forced through.

Tony’s mouth went dry when he watched the water turn red and slowly, slowly, slowly drain away. He grabbed a bar of soap he concocted himself off the edge and scrubbed at Peter’s hands. And scrubbed and scrubbed. They were still tinged pink when the engineer turned off the water and moved to dry them on the towel hanging nearby. “There, see? All clean.”

Peter said thank you. 

“Don’t worry, kid. Do you want to talk about it?”

He shook his head. “Don’t want to talk at all,” he mumbled.

Sliding an arm around his shoulders, Tony shrugged. “Now _that’s_ a true horror. I never thought I’d see the day that Peter Parker didn’t want to speak. Maybe it’s all catching up to you, huh? FRIDAY, mute all incoming messages, I’m off the clock for the rest of the night.” He brought them both out of the lab and into the living room. “You up for _Star Wars_?” Without waiting for an answer, he was already pushing Peter onto the couch and telling FRIDAY to boot up the movie.

Peter watch with wide, unblinking eyes as his mentor fetched a blanket from an armchair nearby, kicked off his shoes, and sat down right next to him.

”Come here,” Tony requested, holding an arm out. 

He wasted no time in crawling into the safety of his arms; rested his head on his chest and curled his hands in his soft t-shirt. He could feel the the space where the arc reactor used to be, the slight hollow in Tony’s chest. 

It calmed his jittering nerves more than anything else. Tony rested one hand on Peter’s back to rub soothing circles and allowed the other one to card through his hair again and again, occasionally untangling the small knots the Spiderman mask always seemed to create, occasionally just resting his hand on Peter’s neck to feel his pulse beneath his fingers.

Tony liked to make lists. He had a list of happy moments to look back on in times of distress and relapse. He mentally added this moment to the list—Peter safely curled up, nearly in his lap, on the edge of sleeping, a warm blanket over them, and an amazingly nerdy movie playing on his TV.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> follow me on tumblr: jessicagoddamnjones


	3. Insomnia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day three is insomnia ENJOY THE NERDS :)
> 
> Also—thank you for commenting!! Please do more!! I am desperate and they make me very happy!!

Shortly after May found out about Peter’s part-time job as a vigilante, she took the suit and forbade him from ever going outside as anyone but innocent Peter Parker again. It took nearly a month of begging and pleading and promising from both Peter and Tony—whom she put the fear of God in—for her to relent.

Nevertheless, Aunt May set down some rules.  _Hard_ rules. 

One of them was that he come home by ten thirty on school nights, midnight on weekends. 

(It was originally nine and eleven, but Tony wore her down to a later curfew.)

Another was that whenever Karen sent his vitals to Tony, they also went to her as well. 

There was an entire subset of rules and regulations he now had to follow in order to keep on being Spiderman, but he was okay with them as long as he still got to put on the suit and do some good every week.

After six months of perfect behavior, May backed off a tiny bit for some of the rules. She said that he could have a bit more freedom—but there was one last condition to it.

There were worse things in the world than being forced to spend the weekend and most holiday breaks in the company of one slightly unstable, deeply troubled, and extremely sarcastic Tony Stark.

Technically they were supposed to be ‘superhero lessons’. Peter never had any formal training in combat, and for those long six months Aunt May argued with herself on whether or not to allow Peter within ten miles of Mr. Stark. 

(It also meant that it was a whole six months of Peter not being able to actually hang out with him—though that didn’t stop Mr. Stark from ‘accidentally’ running into him all over New York, everywhere from in the middle of Spiderman webbing up an asshole in the street to Peter Parker buying a sandwich in the morning. One time Mr. Stark just _happened_ to be using the same bathroom in the same library at the same time and day as Peter. You haven’t lived, he later told Ned, until you had a billionaire-genius stand on a nasty toilet seat to see over the top of the stall just so he could talk to you while you’re washing your hands.)

It was only when Peter came home with several broken ribs and a pained smile that she relented and ordered Mr. Stark to ‘ _teach him how to not be such an idiot, please_.’

So every Friday, Peter was picked up from Midtown by Happy in a very conspicuous black SUV. Sometimes Tony would be waiting inside, sometimes not. 

Either way, it still confused the hell out of his classmates. 

Peter would stay the entire weekend at the Tower with Tony, slept in his personalized guest room (he had a personalized guest room! In the Tower!) and basically did whatever he was told to do by Mr. Stark.

There never seemed to be a set schedule for the weekends. Sometimes they worked in the labs the entire time, sometimes Tony would set Peter up in the gym and have him fight either holograms or agents. Occasionally Tony would make him spar with mysterious strangers who didn’t work for a any (legal) organization while under strict instructions to _not_ tell May under any circumstances. One weekend they spent the whole time in the basement of the Tower working on the pipes. When Peter asked Why maintenance couldn’t work on it, Tony said he was building character. It actually turned out to be kind of fun, and they stayed down there until the wee hours of the morning. 

This weekend, Tony had split it up between sparring with agents and working with him in the lab, which meant he was sore and overworked both physically and mentally.

Tony clapped him on the shoulder after Peter finally put down his pencil and yawned. “It’s past your bedtime, kid. I’m working you too hard, May should stop letting you come over. It’s unhealthy.”

”No! I’m fine, Mr. Stark, really, I can go for h-h- _hours_.” He stumbled through the last word while yawning once more. “I’m not even tired! Jus’ need some coffee and I’ll be good to go,” Peter insisted. He stood up and immediately stumbled. “Woah. Head rush.” 

“Pete,” Tony said, “Get some sleep. Seriously. Your Aunt’ll have my head if she thinks you haven’t been sleeping enough because of me, and she is so much scarier than any person has a right to be.”

”Hell hath no fury like an angry Auntie.” Peter grinned at his own joke and reluctantly started shoving the equations he had been tweaking into a folder, which he then put next to the in-lab coffee maker so he wouldn’t forget it the next day. 

Tony ruffled Peter’s hair and said, “I’ll finish cleaning this up. Go to bed, I need you raring to go tomorrow. Sweet dreams, kiddo.”

”You too.” Peter wobbled out of the lab like he was a newborn fawn. He leaned heavily against the elevator walls and sighed. 

 _Maybe_ , he dared to hope, _maybe tonight I_ will _get some sleep. Maybe the nightmares have wrung themselves out. Please, god, let me get some sleep. I’m so tired_.

It was with a crowded mind that Peter entered his room and stripped off his clothes. He put on the soft-as-clouds pajamas Mr. Stark had bought him after he learned—and subsequently threw a fit about—Peter wasn’t packing pajamas for the Tower and was thus sleeping in his school clothes. 

The hero crawled into his bed, which should by all means have been putting him to sleep quicker than any other bed, as it was one of the most expensive ones money could buy.

(“Teenagers need like, eight hours of sleep a night, Peter! I’m not going to be responsible for you failing high school and becoming a male stripper!” Tony had told him when Peter expressed his disbelief at the cost. How was Peter supposed to tell him that he hadn’t slept right in about a year and Tony hadn’t noticed?)

It wasn’t the bed that was the problem.

It was Peter.

He had barely closed his eyes and pulled the cover over himself when suddenly it weighed a thousand pounds—and it was hard as stone—and suffocating him—and every place it touched him made him want to rip his skin off—and for a second he froze in blind panic because this was _hopeless_ , he was never going to escape, he would be trapped under this building until he was nothing but a rotting corpse and everyone would all gather around and say, “Well, why didn’t he just move the blanket?” Because it _was_ a blanket, really, but it was also breaking every rib he had and squeezing blood from him like a juicer with an orange.

Peter kicked the blanket off. 

He rubbed at his chest and gasped for air like it was his first breath. Everything _seemed_ to be suffocating him, yet he was still regretfully awake.

The truth was, sleep had abandoned Peter the night he fought the Vulture. And it never returned for any of the nights following. It left Peter scrambling for a moments rest in stolen minutes; in the library, in class, during study sessions with the Decathlon team—which he somehow, miraculously hadn’t been kicked out of—,once even at the dinner table. 

Of course, there were nights where he was just so physically exhausted that he passed out. Those were the dreamless nights, the ones he didn’t wake up from for hours and hours. May always worried about those nights, but he told her it was just stress building up until he could sleep it off. Those nights were like gems to Peter. He never woke up feeling fully refreshed, of course. But it was better than how he felt before. Like he was just an empty puppet being jerked around by strings, the audience never realizing or never caring that it wasn’t real. He hated the days leading up to the passing out, but he quite enjoyed the unconscious portion of it. 

 _Water. I need some water_. 

Although Peter had his own adjoining bathroom with his room, he wanted to get some from the kitchen. Just for something to do. An excuse for as to why he wasn’t asleep.

”Hello, Peter.”

He jumped so high he almost stuck to the ceiling at FRIDAY’s voice. “Jesus, Fri, what’s the deal?”

”Sorry for scaring you. This is the tenth time you’ve been up past midnight this month. Is there a problem I can help you with?”

Peter ran his hands through his hair. “No, thanks.”

”Would you like me to inform Mr. Stark that you’re awake?”

”No! No, don’t tell Mr. Stark anything! Shouldn’t he be asleep?”

”Shouldn’t you?”

Peter yelped and turned around. There was Mr. Stark, silhouetted against the hallway light like an avenging angel cast down from the heavens, hands on his hips. “Mr. Stark!” He squeaked, “Wha-what are you doing up here?”

The engineer came closer. “I told FRIDAY to start telling me when you weren’t sleeping after you fell asleep with your eyes open last week.”

”Damn . . .”

Reaching Peter, Tony raised an eyebrow. “What are you doing up?”

He gestured over his shoulder with a thumb. “I was, uh, gonna get some water.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “What are you doing not _sleeping_ , genius?”

Embarrassment made his tongue heavy and his cheeks hot. He didn’t want to admit to Tony Stark, billionaire, genius, superhero and mentor, that he was having _nightmares_. How childish was that? “Uh—I wanted to, uh, work some more. I figured once you, um, went to sleep, then I could s-sneak into the lab and . . . work.” Peter’s voice trailed off pathetically at the end.

A deep sigh came from the other man. “I know you’re lying, I can see your tell.”

”I have a tell?”

”Everybody had a tell.”

”Well, then what’s yours?”

”Are you kidding me? I’m not telling you my tell, that would be ridiculous.”

”Then what’s _my_ tell?”

”That’s an even worse idea than before. Geez, you must really be tired.”

Peter huffed in disappointment. “I am, I guess. I just can’t sleep. I have stuff to do.”

”Peter,” Tony placed a soothing hand on the young boy’s cheek, “What do you possibly have to do that can’t wait until you’ve slept?”

Not meeting his eyes, he muttered something unintelligible, then paused. “You know, you never answered my question.”

Tony racked his mind for something he might have missed. “What question?”

”Why are you still awake?”

The man sighed and shrugged nonchalantly. “Had nightmares. Always get ‘em, they’re a real bitch to deal with.” 

Nightmares. 

Tony Stark had nightmares. 

The unbreakable Tony Stark had _nightmares_.

He must have been staring, or something, because Mr. Stark crossed his arms and said, “Hey, now, don’t be getting all high and mighty on me, Pete. I’m an old man, I got lots of things to be scared of. Why are _you_ awake? The truth, this time.”

Peter licked his lips. “Nightmares. They’re a real bitch to deal with. Haven’t been sleeping much thanks to them.”

Tony’s brow creased. “You’ve been having nightmares, kid? Why didn’t you tell me?”

”I don’t know.” Peter crossed his arms and shoved his hands into his sleeves. “They seemed silly. _Kids_ gets nightmares. I-I don’t think they’re a big deal. I mean, you’ve been through so much more than I have, and so much _worse_ , too, so of course you can have nightmares, you’ve earned the right to have and complain about them but-but I haven’t. I don’t think I have, I mean. They aren’t a big deal.”

“Kiddo, I literally don’t know how to respond.”

Peter felt his heart sink. Of _course_ Mr. Stark would think he was being ridiculous, of course he wouldn’t care about Peter’s nightmares, he just wanted him to go to sleep so he wouldn’t have to get on his case every five minutes.

”That is, quite possibly, the dumbest thing you’ve ever said to me. And you say a lot of dumb things.” Tony rubbed his jaw as he said the next part, “The fact that you think you haven’t _earned the right_ to complain about your nightmares? To even _speak_ about them? Jesus, kid. You-you don’t need to earn a right to complain about something! You had an entire building dropped on you, that’s something no one, especially someone your age, should go through. The fact that you’ve even lasted this long without having a breakdown is mind boggling. Lord knows I would have given up by now!” He reaches out to clasp Peter’s shoulder; to shake him a little. “You are so much stronger than you give yourself credit for, Pete.”

Peter blushed deeply. He looked at the ground and fought the urge to throw his arms around Mr. Stark. “That’s different,” he mumbled.

” _How_?” Tony implored. 

“Because! I mean, the stuff you’ve gone through is just—“

”It is so important to your future that you not finish that sentence.”

”Mr. _Stark_. I’m being serious.”

”As am I!” He threw an arm around Peter and started half-pushing, half-guiding him down the hallway. “Come on, we’re gonna go watch Netflix in my bed until we both pass out. It’ll be a sleepover. What’s that one show you like, the one with the—“

”X-Files?” Peter asked hopefully.

Tony snapped his fingers, “That’s it.”

Peter allowed Tony to walk the both of them to Tony’s (much larger) bedroom. They were silent the entire way there, just enjoying the comfort of each other’s company.

When they arrived at Tony’s door, he paused and turned to the younger boy. “And Peter?”

”Yeah?”

”Don’t think you’re going to get out of telling me about your little insomnia thing. We are very much going to discuss it in great detail tomorrow, and I strongly encourage (but won’t force) you to tell your Aunt May about it too. But beyond this door, we won’t speak of it any more, I promise.”

The student sagged in relief.

It was only later, when Peter was pulled right up to Tony’s side (he was actually laying half of his body on top of his, but Tony didn’t complain so Peter didn’t move.) that he pulled his head up from where it was comfortably nested on Tony’s chest. “Mm, Tony? Thank you for this. You’re a lot stronger than you give yourself credit for too. You don’t deserve those nightmares. You didn’t deserve—“ here, he paused to yawn, “—any of it.”

Tony’s throat was uncomfortably tight when he choked out, “Thanks, Pete.” 

(They both slept through the night without so much as a whimper.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follow me on tumblr: jessicagoddamnjones


	4. “No, stop!”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 4 of whumptober is simply the prompt, “No, stop!” Enjoy, let me know what you think please!

There was no orange juice.

Peter sighed and let his head fall against the fridge door. 

They were _out_ of _orange juice_. “Why does God hate me?” He shut the fridge and turned around. “FRIDAY, can you add orange juice to the grocery list, please?”

”Of course, Peter,” answered the AI. 

“Thanks.” Peter walked out of the kitchen and down to the lab area. It was his regularly scheduled weekend with Tony, but he had left the man working on his newest creation to scrounge up some food. One of the downsides of the spider bite was that he was hungry basically all the time. He could eat a feast and be sated for two or three hours, but he was still eating enough for five grown men. 

Aunt May always be teased that he would eat her out of a house with all the food she had to buy. Tony thought it was a mix between hilarious and horrifying how much he could eat. Peter still remembered the look on his face the first time they actually sat down and ate together at a quaint hole-in-the-wall buffet. He liked to think back on it when he was having a bad time. 

 _Maybe I can convince him to come out for an hour or two so we can go eat_ , he thought.  _He’s usually down for Chinese food._ _And he’s been in there all day—he probably needs to eat more than I do!_

He entered quietly. Mr. Stark disliked being interrupted when he was in the planning stage of his inventions. (Though he never showed it; It would be a cold day in Hell before Mr. Stark yelled at Peter for interrupting.) 

At first, Peter thought Mr. Stark was just _really_ slouched over. But as he walked closer, he saw that the man was completely sprawled out over the table, asleep. 

Peter smiled fondly and started to organize the loose papers covered in his mentor’s mad scribbling. Tony may get angry at himself for falling asleep later, but for now, Peter would let him rest as long as he wanted. He already got so little rest as it was (though he’d deny even needing it until his face was blue).

It wasn’t until the teen was seating in a comfortable rolling chair, doing homework, until he heard the first cries.

”No . . . No!”

Upon looking up, he saw that Tony was twitching in his sleep. “Uh . . . Mr. Stark?”

He didn’t know what to do if Tony was having a nightmare! The only times he had seen him sleeping was when they were falling asleep together; usually on the couch or the rare occasions when they binge watched something in Mr. Stark’s bedroom. He never saw Tony in the middle of sleeping. 

Tony twitched again, his knee jerking up to hit the underside of the table. How _that_ didn’t wake him up, he didn’t know. Nevertheless, Peter got up and hesitantly approached his mentor. 

“No, stop! Stop—please—don’t!”

Tony Stark was _begging_. He was pleading to some faceless terror that was tormenting his subconscious to show mercy—

And it tore Peter apart. 

“Mr. Stark!” He ran forward and shook the man, worried tears shamefully filling his eyes. “Please wake up,” Peter said, moving the chair so he wouldn’t be so slouched over. 

Tony woke up like someone threw hot coffee at him. He gasped, and one shaking, tanned hand reached out to hold Peter’s wrist in an iron grip. “Nuh-no! No, don’t!” Tony blinked furiously. His back was ramrod straight and his head swiveled from one side to another as if looking for threats. “Peter? What, uh, what’s . . . ?”

”You had a nightmare.” Peter’s throat was very tight. “You were asking someone to stop. Are you alright?”

The hero stood up and patted Peter’s arm absentmindedly. “Fine. I’m fine. Actually, no, I’m starving. When’s the last time you ate?”

Taken aback, he answered, “Uh, a couple hours ago. I was gonna wait until you woke up to ask if we could get some Chinese food.”

”Sounds good, kiddo. Gimme a few minutes to get changed. You can just go ahead and wait in the garage,” Tony told him. He rubbed his jaw and started towards the door. 

“Mr. Stark?” Peter reached out and grabbed his elbow before he could go too far. 

“What is it?”

”Uh. I just wanted—I mean—I want you to know that—“

”Spit it out, Spiderboy.”

Peter ran a hand through his curls and took a deep breath. “I wanted you to know that you can talk to me. About things. Your nightmares.  You aren’t _actually_ made of iron, you know? You don’t deserve anything that happened to you, and you shouldn’t keep it all bottled up. It’s unhealthy. And—sorry if this is dragging on, but—even if you don’t want to talk to me, you can talk to Rhodey or Pepper. People are here for you. They—we—want you to be happy. So yeah. That’s all.”

Tony’s eyes were not filled with tears, he told himself. His throat was not suspiciously tight. He did _not_ want to pull Peter into a rib-crushing hug. And he especially did not want to call his Aunt May and beg her to let Peter move in for just a few years.

”Okay. Thanks, buddy. I’ll . . . I’ll keep it in mind.” On instinct, he reached out and messed up the younger boy’s hair, always enjoying his look of disgruntled adorableness. “Now let’s get going. Chinese, right?”

Peter beamed and trailed behind Tony like a happy puppy.

It was almost enough to make Tony want to cry. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> follow me on tumblr: jessicagoddamnjones OR comment and tell me what you think about this chapter :)
> 
> I know this one is shorter than the others but I liked it so it’ll just be a happy little blurb!


	5. Poison

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day five of whumptober is poison  
> Enjoy, please :)

The first time Mr. Stark ever invited Peter to one of his little parties, Peter had to set down the phone and scream into his pillow. 

_Holyshitholyshitholyshitholyshitholyshit_

”Yeah, sounds good. What, uh, what time do you want me to be over?”

Tony’s voice carried a hint of amusement that told Peter he knew  _exactly_ what Peter was hiding behind his oh-so-casual acceptance. “Don’t sweat it. Happy will pick you up around eight thirty.”

”Okay, coolcoolcoolcoolcool.” Peter winced. Now was not the time to summon his inner Jake Peralta!

Anyways, that was just the first time. Peter thought it was a one-and-done situation, especially after he had totally stolen Tony’s thunder by telling a story about how his Algebra teacher and Chemistry teacher (who were both married women) had had an affair since the beginning of the school year, and that the only reason the students knew was because the Chemistry teacher had gotten down on one knee and proposed to the Algebra teacher _at prom_. She accepted, they divorced their husbands, and then quit their jobs and were now supposedly living in California.

But according to Mr. Stark, he was a hit! Everybody loved him! He even went so far as to say that some of them had been asking for him at the parties he wasn’t invited to. 

That also made him scream into his pillow. 

Because of the wild-lesbian-home wrecking-forbidden-teacher-romance love story he told, Peter got a lot more invites to a lot more of Mr. Stark’s parties.

Of course, there were complications. Aunt May was fine with the parties, but she said that if he had even a drink—even a sip—even a _drip_ of alcohol, that Tony would get his balls chopped off. 

Mr. Stark had turned rather pale, but still grinned and gave her a hug and said, “Of course, May. Do I look like I pass out alcohol to minors?”

” _Yes_ ,” chorused both May and Peter. 

The engineer made a sour face but readily agreed with all of her strict rules.

And so it was that Peter Parker never drank anything stronger than Mountain Dew at Tony Stark’s parties. 

Mr. Stark always made sure that there was a large stockpile of drinks specifically set aside in the fridge for whenever Peter came over. They ranged from apple juice to chocolate milk to orange soda. 

This particular night, Peter was carrying around a cup of Dr. Pepper and hovering on the edges of the party. Tony had been invited to this big science convention and had, of course, offered to host the after-party, which meant that the ninetieth floor (the floor specifically reserved for parties) was filled to the brim with some of the best and brightest minds in the world. Normally, he wasn’t as nervous—Tony’s guests always made him feel very welcome, if a bit childish—but these people were _geniuses._  They were the ones shaping the future for Peter’s generation.

Peter always kept Tony in the corner of his eyes at all times. At that moment, he was preforming a card trick to the delight of the scientists surrounding him. He nervously gulped down his drink and crept towards the balcony.

All night, Peter’s spidey senses had been prickling at his neck and arms. It had proven to be pretty picky on what it seemed dangerous or not. It would go off when Flash was about to throw a wad of paper at him, but not when a rogue bad guy was about to tackle him, so he usually tuned it out. 

He winced as a burst of laughter erupted near Tony. It grated on his ultra-sensitive ears. 

Truth was, Peter was feeling overwhelmed and tired. He kind of wanted to just get the whole night over with, but felt it was rude to go home early.

 _Just a few more hours_ , he thought. Then Happy will be able to drive me home. _Just a few more hours._

“Pete?”

The boy jumped and turned around. Mr. Stark was standing behind him, clutching a drink filled to the brim with something pink and fruity. “Mr. Stark! What are you doing over here? I thought you were entertaining the guests . . .”

”What do you call this?” He smiled and walked closer, throwing an arm around the younger boy. “What kind of a host would I be if I ignored the smartest kid in the room?”

”I’m the only kid in the room.”

Tony shrugged and sipped at his drink. “All the more reason to make sure you’re doing okay. Are you?”

“Am I what?”

”Doing okay? You look kind of nauseated there, kiddo.”

Peter nodded. He looked around the room once more before looking back at Tony. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just a bit tired, is all. Are you okay?”

Tony smiled, a shrewd sort of smile that made Peter turn to him and start scanning for injuries. “Actually, now that you mention it, could you call an ambulance?”

And then, in typical Tony Stark fashion, he nonchalantly fell to the ground. 

* * *

“And that’s it? He just collapsed?” Ned leaned forward eagerly, elbows coming up to rest on his biology homework. 

Peter nodded somberly. “Yup. Like it was nothing—like he got poisoned every _day_! It was so cool.”

His best friend looked like the idea of watching famed genius Tony Stark fall unconscious was more exciting than the Super Bowl. “Wow. What did you do after that?”

”Well, basically as soon as he hit the ground there was a million people calling nine-one-one, and a million people trying to get to him to be the ‘hero who saves Tony’, and a million people trying to get pictures.” Peter crossed out an answer in his homework and rewrote it. “So I kind of had to fight against the crowd to stay with him—but then Happy was just shoving through everybody, yelling at them to move or be moved, and he’s like a _boulder_ , man, he made them part like the Red Sea. Once he got there he started to check his vitals and stuff, and then he asked if anyone was a doctor and like _everyone_ raised their hands because basically everybody there _was_ a doctor. So he picked a random girl out of the crowd and told everyone else to start clearing out. And by that time, more security had showed up so they started to escort everyone out, and I begged to stay with Mr. Stark but Happy just told me to go home and that he would call me later, and I tried to argue but those guys were _really_ big so I just left. But I’m going to go visit him today, after school. Happy’s picking me up.”

” _Woah_.” Ned leaned back and stared at Peter in awe. “Mr. Stark is a badass.”

“Oh, yeah. He’s cool.” Peter closed his notebook and stole a look around the classroom. Nobody was listening to them, as per usual, but it never hurt to check. 

“Hey, Peter, do you think you can get me invited to the next party? Peter? Do you? Peter?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> follow me on tumblr: jessicagoddamnjones  
> Comment if you feel moved to!  
> Sorry this one is so short, I wasn’t feeling the prompt yikes.


	6. Betrayed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day six is betrayed .... oh boy .......... oh boy. I kind of switched things up a bit in this one: there isn’t a direct betrayal, but it revolves around a past betrayal and the aftermath of that, sort of. You’ll figure it out. Enjoy :)

Aunt May had kicked him out of the apartment. 

Well, maybe that wasn’t correct. She hasn’t kicked him out so much as kicked him  _into_ Mr. Stark’s presence. After he ate an entire box of pizza by himself in ten minutes. For the third time that week.

(The key was to stack the slices.)

She had walked into his bedroom, saw him sprawled out on the ground with the empty pizza box—on a tower of the other twenty or so pizza boxes he had accumulated over the months—right next to him, with a Biology textbook open on his chest, sighed deeply, and walked right back out to grab her keys and coat.

”Did you at least call him and ask if it was okay?” Peter twisted his fingers together in his lap, backpack at his feet. 

Aunt May scoffed. “Peter, When has he ever _not_ wanted you over? It’ll be fine.” She paused. “Plus, my old phone broke and my new one doesn’t have any of my contacts in it yet. Why don’t _you_ call him?”

”Uh, my old phone broke on patrol. I was gonna see if I could fix it the next time I was with Mr. Stark.”

She looked at him, back to the road which was overflowing with snow, and pinched her lips together to stop her laugh. “We’re two peas in a pod, Peter.”

Peter grinned at his Aunt. “I had to get it from someone.”

May reached out and playfully punched his shoulder. 

Technically, it wasn’t Peter’s shift to be with Mr. Stark. The snow had been coming down heavily the past few weeks, and apparently it froze the pipes or something at Midtown, which meant that school was canceled for a few days. Even so, Mr. Stark really didn’t mind when Peter came by on school days, and even insisted that he could come by whenever without warning. The student had never actually done it—he always, always, always called or texted ahead. 

“You try and get that phone fixed, okay honey?” Aunt May ran her through Peter’s hair, making it even messier than it already was. “Let me know if you end up staying the night.”

”Okay, May.” He grabbed the backpack—filled to exploding with school stuff he was trying to catch up on over the unscheduled break—and opened the car door. The winter chill burst into the car, turning the tips of their noses pink.

He was so excited to hang out with Tony that he was almost shaking (though that could have just as easily been the cold, or his nerves.) Aunt May grinned at his back and called out, “I larb you!”

Peter stuck his head back in and breathed out, “I larb you too. Drive safe, see you later!” Then he shut the door and hurried into the warmth of the Tower’s lobby.

He greeted the assistant at the desk cheerfully when he walked past him on his way to the elevators, but he barely even looked up at him from where he was texting on his phone, which was odd. Kevin was usually a ray of sunshine and always took the time to ask people about their day when they came in. Perhaps an emergency had stolen his attention?

No matter the situation, Peter frowned and swiped his ID on the elevator scanner. A split second later, FRIDAY’s disembodied voice greeted him. “Hello, Peter. It isn’t your shift with Tony, is there a problem?”

”Nope,” he responded, walking inside the elevator and watching the doors close on Kevin’s profile. “Aunt May dropped me off, said I was going to start climbing on the walls if I stayed there any longer. She figured, since I have no school anyways, that I could use the time to do something useful.“

The AI sounded amused when it said, “Well I’m sure Boss will be happy to have you over. You always seem to calm him down. Shall I inform him you’re on your way?”

Peter looked at the ceiling in confusion. Why would he need to calm down Mr. Stark? “No, that’s fine, thanks. Uh, FRIDAY, is there a problem with Mr. Stark, or . . . ?”

”That’s not my place to say, Peter. Just be your charming self and things will work out.” Now the AI was _definitely_ amused. Which shouldn’t have been possible, but Tony Stark never knew a half-way. 

(He didn’t actually know what that meant, but he heard Aunt May say it a lot, usually in exasperation.)

”Okay. I guess. Um, can you just put me on whatever floor Mr. Stark is, please?”

”Certainly. Have fun, Mr. Parker.”

The anxiety of showing up unannounced plus the anticipation that always showed up in him at the Tower both warred in Peter’s belly, making him reconsider ever leaving the apartment. The only thing that made him stay in the elevator was the fact that Aunt May had seemed one hundred percent certain that Tony wouldn’t mind his being there.

Peter adjusted his backpack and tucked his hands into his sleeves as the elevator doors opened. Something was making his Spidey sense go off, but that wasn’t unusual. It went off half the time he was around Mr. Stark, what with him always working on or possessing something at least mildly dangerous. How his Spider sense deemed what was more dangerous than anything else was a mystery Peter had yet to unravel.

He silently got off, using his advanced senses to snoop around and try and determine where Mr. Stark was.

There were a lot of unfamiliar smells—colognes, perfumes, the natural but distinct smell everybody gave off. 

(If you placed Peter in a room, blindfolded, with all the people he interacted with on a daily basis, he could tell exactly who everyone was based on their natural scent. May called it weird. Mr. Stark also called it weird, but he was more fascinated with it than his Aunt.)

“Mr. Stark?” Peter cleared his throat when it cracked. The winter air was positively unhealthy for him. “Uh, it’s Peter. Parker. Peter Parker.” He walked further in, hands clutching the hem of his sweater nervously. “Aunt May just dropped me off . . .”

The boy got very quiet when he heard quiet whispers from the dining room. A normal person would not have heard it, but as Peter Parker was not a normal person, he heard it just fine.

”Who the hell is Peter Parker? Since when did Tony have a kid?” A woman asked. 

“Hey, the dude gets around. For all we know he has twenty mini Stark’s running around, just waitin’ to blow something up,” said a man’s voice.

”Would you two quit it?” Another man’s voice hissed, this one more familiar than the rest.

Peter swallowed and walked closer. He decided to pretend as if he hadn’t heard them for the sake of his secret identity. “Mr. Stark? You here?” He made a show of wandering into the kitchen and looking around, then turning to look into the dining room and freezing like a deer in the headlights.

That last part wasn’t so fake, actually.

In the dining room, scattered about as if they owned the place, were none other than Natasha Romanoff, Sam Wilson, and Steve Rogers.

_Holyshitholyshitholyshit_

He stared at them. They stared at him. He stared at them. They started to get bored of staring at him.

”Hey, kid,” said Steve, “Stark just stepped out for a while to go make some calls. I think it’s best you head home for the day, I don’t think he’ll be in the mood for company.” 

Words seemed to be building in his throat like lava in an active volcano; they filled his mouth and scraped against his teeth just _begging_ to be let out, to be given life, and for a second or two Peter actually thought he could hold his tongue in check, but then Steve had to fucking speak, and— 

“What are _you_ doing here?” His words were lava in his throat but they turned into acid the second they passed his lips.

Natasha Romanoff, now sporting a sleek new blonde hairstyle, casually raised an eyebrow and said, “We could ask you the same thing, bub.”

He pulled a disgusted face and said, “Don’t call me that.”

She seemed surprised that Peter acted so vehemently biased towards them. Sam Wilson snorted and said, “Stark isn’t here. Will you do us a favor and take a hike? This is private business, kiddo.”

”Don’t call me _that_ , either.” Truth be told, he respected them for the actions they had done to try and help America and all, but after the airport fight, after he saw how beaten to hell Tony was (physically and emotionally), he kind of nursed a grudge against Team Cap. A grudge which only grew every time they were brought up in conversation and he had to watch as Tony fell silent and suddenly uninterested in talking. “Aren’t you guys war criminals or something? You think you’d be a bit smarter than to come to the one person’s who could kick your ass’ house.”

”How old are you?” Steve asked in disbelief.

”Old enough to know that you shouldn’t be here. Actually, scratch that, I’m old enough to know you don’t _deserve_ to be here.” Peter had never been so callous in his life.

(With each manner of disrespect he conducted himself with, Peter felt more and more angry at them for the airport. For going unpunished. For thinking they could do whatever they wanted.)

”Dude, who is this guy?” Sam hissed to Steve.

Natasha spoke up from where she was lounging in a chair at the head of the table. “How do you know Tony?”

This is where Peter faltered. He was dying to say that he had been the one in the spider suit who backed up Tony at the airport, but he also did _not_ want them to know who he truly was. “I’m an intern.”

”You seem pretty protective for an intern,” noted Sam. He was sitting to the right of Natasha, in the chair by the corner of the table. Steve was standing behind them, arms tightly crossed.

Peter smiled. “ _Somebody_ has to be. You see, most of his team betrayed him and left him for dead in Germany because they thought they knew better than a hundred and seventeen countries.”

”You don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Steve. He seemed calm, if a bit peeved that a sixteen year old was verbally harassing him.

 _Oh, but I do_ , he thought maliciously. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but you’ve been on the lam for a year and a half, right? Maybe longer? What makes you think you have any right to show up here? You don’t know what _you’re_ talking about, _Captain_.” Sarcasm covered his words like a glove. 

“What’s your name?” Asked Natasha.

“Peter,” he answered without hesitation. “Peter Parker. And that makes you the traitor, right?”

”Watch it, Parker. You really don’t understand the situation,” she said, a hint of a threat in her voice.

He pulled out a chair and sat down, allowing his backpack to fall to the ground. This put him directly in front of Natasha. “I understand that you said you were on Mr. Stark’s side, then betrayed him after the battle.”

”How does an intern know so much about the airport, huh?” Sam asked. “That’s some pretty classified information. What makes you so special?”

Peter looked him up and down. He had no taste for these men who had turned their backs on his mentor. They truly seemed to have no clue how much it affected him. “My sparkling personality.”

”You sure you aren’t Stark’s kid? You sure do act like him.” Natasha leaned back in her chair and squinted at him.

”Great minds think alike?” Peter mimicked her pose, but made eye contact with Steve and refused to be the first one to break it. “You never answered my question. What are you doing here?”

Steve said, “You can relax. We aren’t here to hurt Tony—or anyone. We’re . . . extending an olive branch.”

His nose wrinkled. “Must be a hell of a branch. What do you guys want from Mr. Stark?”

”What makes you think we want anything?” Asked Sam.

”The fact that you haven’t spoken to him in nearly two years and are now suddenly trying to fit right back into his good graces like nothing ever happened.”

”That’s not exactly what’s going on here,” said Natasha.

”But close enough, right?”

”Who are you?” Asked Steve. 

“Like I said. Peter Parker. Intern. That’s it.” Peter watched Steve walk around Natasha and sit across from Sam. 

“Kid—sorry, _Peter_ , no intern could possibly have this much classified information, doesn’t matter how close you think you are to Tony,” Steve said.

Peter raised his eyebrows. 

(He never learned how to raise just one at a time.)

”How close I _think_ I am to him?” He scoffed. “That’s real rich coming from a guy who completely turned his back on him, even after all he did for you. Tell me, Cap, how close do you think you are to Mr. Stark? ‘Cause I’d wager that between the two of us—“ and here he leaned forward, dropping his voice conspiratorially, “—I’m sort of the better option.”

The trio stared at the lone boy in a mix of annoyance, confusion, and amusement. 

(That last part might have just been Sam.)

Finally, Natasha spoke. “You got a big head, Peter. Seem pretty confident that you got something over us.”

”I do have something over you, actually,” Peter said cheerfully. “Wanna know what it is?”

”Oh, do tell,” said Sam.

” _I didn’t betray him and leave him for dead in frickin’ Germany_!” Peter laughed. “That pretty much automatically makes me a better option than you guys, right?”

It was at that moment, when Peter was thinking of how bruised Tony was after the airport and Steve was thinking of a way to diffuse the situation and Natasha was thinking of how to make the kid leave and Sam was thinking of how there was no way this kid _wasn’t_ Stark’s, that Tony walked in. He didn’t notice Peter at first, but Peter noticed him. Noticed the stress clouding his eyes and the difference in the way he walked around.

Tony was uncomfortable around these people.

”Alright, so I made some calls and Mirsone thinks that there’s a possibility of making a case, but there’s some pretty big— _Peter_?” The engineer stopped dead in his tracks and gawked.

Peter smiled like an angel and chirped, “Hi, Mr. Stark! Who’s Mirsone?”

”Uh, a lawer.” Tony hurried forward and lowered his voice. “What are you doing here, kiddo?”

He shrugged, didn’t bother changing his voice level. He didn’t care if the others heard or not. “Aunt May dropped me off. Said I was driving her nuts and that I might as well do something with my time.”

Tony frowned and checked his watch. “Isn’t it a school day? You don’t feel sick, do you?”

”Nope,” he answered. “School is cancelled. Snow froze the pipes or something.”

”Hey, Tony, who is this kid?” Asked Sam. “He claims to be an intern, but we aren’t buying that horseshit.”

Steve muttered something under his breath and kicked Sam under the table. Sam glared and Natasha told him  _don’t_   _even think about it_ before he could retaliate. 

Tony gently grabbed Peter and tugged him up. “He is an intern,” he threw over his shoulder. “A very nosy, misbehaving intern, but definitely an intern, oh yeah.” He added quietly to Peter, “You shouldn’t be here. You should have come straight to me the moment you saw them. Christ, kid, I thought you knew better than this.”

”I know better for sure, Mr. Stark.” Peter grabbed his backpack and slid his arms through the straps. He started talking to him under his breath as Tony led him out of the room. “I just really wanted to be mean to them for some reason. It was like someone else was speaking through me. I didn’t even know I could be that rude!”

”You were _rude_?” Tony asked in disbelief. “Why were you rude?”

”I mean . . .” Peter shrugged.

”Peter!” 

What the hell did Steve want?

The boy paused and backed up a few steps to see the soldier again. “What?” He asked flatly.

”Listen, I don’t know you, and you may think you know me, but you don’t. Thing is, uh, be careful of who you spend your time with. Tony may not be the best person to inevest in, emotionally. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Peter pursed his lips. Looked Steve up and down. “Well, between the two of us Captain, only one of us was the jackass who left Tony beaten nearly to death and bleeding, with no way of contacting anyone or getting home, along with his suit literally slowly crushing him to death in the middle of nowhere in an unfamiliar country, and it wasn’t me. If anyone here’s the worst person, it’s you. Sorry. Not sorry.” 

He stepped back and walked past a frozen Mr. Stark to exit the room again. “I’ll be in Lab Four,” he told his mentor. 

Then Peter Parker left the dining room, ending his first official meeting with Captain America, the Black Widow, and the Falcon.

It went pretty well, all things considered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried to make this one longer as a little treat because the last two were so short!
> 
> Follow me on tumblr: jessicagoddamnjones 
> 
> Comment and tell me what you liked (or didn’t like) (or what you had for lunch today) (anything really please I’m desperate and love receiving little comments)


	7. Kidnapped

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day seven = kidnapping! I’m low key excited to write this one bc it has so many possibilities (:

Saturday night. Peter was with Tony, in the kitchen, learning how to make pancakes.

(“I’m not sure this is what Aunt May had in mind when she told you to teach me stuff.” “Shut up and crack the eggs, Spiderboy.”)

”The trick,” Tony was now telling him, “is to add in a little bit of cinnamon in the mix to give it a special flavor.”

Peter laughed when’s Tony grabbed a pinch of cinnamon and dramatically sprinkled it into his pancake mix. “Where in the hell did you learn how to cook?” 

Tony had a smear of flour by his eyes from when he had forgotten he wasn’t wearing sunglasses and went to take them off. It moved when his eyes crinkled, and his eyes crinkled when he smiled, like he was doing now. “Rhodey forced me to learn the bare basics in college, because I was a spoiled brat who never learned anything and he didn’t want me to starve to death. I basically lived off whatever Rhodey threw at me to eat.”

”And now you basically live off whatever Pepper throws at you to eat.”

”Yeah, pretty much. The only difference is that Rhodey said it made him uncomfortable when I tried to kiss him, and Pepper says it makes her _really_ uncomfortable.”

The two looked at each other and burst into laughter. 

These were the days Peter was happiest, he thought. When he was with his mentor and Mr. Stark was in a playful mood and he didn’t have anything to worry about besides making sure he didn’t put too much cinnamon in his mix—these were days Peter would look back on and feel nostalgic about. 

The phone rang. Not Peter or Tony’s phone, but the kitchen phone mounted on the wall. 

Tony clapped a hand to Peter’s shoulder and said he would get it. He told Peter to keep on mixing while he spoke with the person on the other end of the line. 

“Stark.”

Tony always answered his phones like that—“ _Stark_.” He sounded rather curt but when Peter looked over he was making a silly face at him, so he grinned and went back to stirring the mix.

“Who is this?”

Now he sounded confused. Peter wanted to use his Spider hearing to eavesdrop, but he had learned that lesson after overhearing some _very_ adult things exchanged between Pepper and Tony  

Mr. Stark paused, listening.

”What do you mean?” Asked Tony.

Peter slowed his mixing down. Dread reared its ugly head in his stomach. There was something wrong with his voice, with the way he said those words. He tried to catch his eye, but Tony was staring at the wall. 

Tony paused again. Then, he slowly lowered the phone to his side and turned to the boy. “Peter, get out.”

He balked. “Wh-what? Why?”

“Just go, please. I’ll catch up with you later, this is important.”

(Peter’s mentor had never been so brash with him.)

“Why? Mr. Stark? Who’s on the other end?”

”Get _out_ , Peter!” Finally, Tony turned to him. But this wasn’t Tony, this wasn’t the man who hugged Peter close when he was on the verge of crying; this wasn’t the man who once stayed up until three in the morning helping Peter with his Biology homework. This was someone else entirely. Someone who yelled when Peter didn’t listen right away

(Peter never listened right away.)

and didn’t explain what was going on to him.

Peter recoiled and stared at Mr. Stark in shock; he was already turning away to look at the wall again. Slowly, he placed the spoon in the sink and pushed his bowl of pancake mix off to the side, then walked out of the kitchen. 

(In hindsight, he could have used his Spider hearing to listen in, but he was too focused on the fact that Tony had just _yelled_ at him.)

He retreated to his room. Thoughts of how to go about his day now that Tony was occupied flitted through his mind like hummingbirds. He decided on calling Aunt May to tell her about it—she usually knew how to deal with a frantic Peter.

But Aunt May didn’t answer. That was almost as odd as what Tony had done in the kitchen. 

She didn’t have work that day, as far as Peter knew, and she always had her cell with her. 

 _Okay_ , he thought. _Maybe she’s busy right now. I’ll call later_.

No sooner had he opened an English textbook did Mr. Stark knock on his bedroom door and slowly say his name.

Heart in throat, he called, “Come in.”

The door opened. In stepped Tony. And Rhodes. And two men in black suits and somber expressions. 

(Peter preferred it when Tony was angry at him, he decided. If it meant that whatever was making his Spidey senses go haywire would not happen, he would take angry Mr. Stark over Mr. Stark, Rhodey, and two men in black suits any day.)

”Hey, kiddo,” Tony started kindly. He sat down at the foot of Peter’s bed, moving some of his books aside. “Sorry for snapping at you earlier. I was just angry; you didn’t do anything. It’s not your fault.”

Soothing though that confirmation was (and it was really soothing—Peter already wanted to wrap Mr. Stark in a hug), the fact that he used present tense when referring to faults made him wary. That, and the sympathetic face on Rhodey’s—

_ohgodpleasenotellmeitisnttruenonono_

_“_ May?” Peter didn’t recall being punched, but surely that was the only explanation for why his breath had abandoned him. “May—is May alright? Is she—?” His voice came out in a strangled wheeze at the end.

Tony, bless his heart, understood what he was asking immediately and placed a hand on Peter’s knee. “She’s not dead, buddy. Don’t panic. She isn’t dead.”

”Mr. Stark,” said the red headed man in a suit. “Surely we can make this go along a little bit faster?”

”Jesus, Mulder, could you shut up?” Mr. Stark looked at the red head and glared. 

(Peter thought,  _Better him than me_.)

“I’m trying to ease him into this,” he continued.

”Ease me into what?” Peter cut in. “Mr. Stark, what’s happening? Who was on the phone? And who are _these_ guys?” He jerked his chin at the suits. 

He didn’t care for the look on Tony’s face when he turned back to him. “Kid, there’s a situation. And it does involve your Aunt. She’s not dead, and she won’t _be_ dead, and I just want you to keep that in mind when I tell you—“

”What happened?” Peter directed his curt question at the suits, figuring they would get to it quicker than his mentor would.

The blonde one (Peter decided to call him Scully) was the one who answered; “As of seven-thirty this morning, May Parker has been kidnapped.”

At first he just thought, _Oh, okay. That’s not so bad. She isn’t dead, after all._

And then the words actually sunk in, and suddenly Peter was struggling to breath and he had snapped the pencil he was holding in his hands and Tony’s hands were on his back, gently urging him to sit over the side of the bed and to put his head between his knees and to just breath _in, out, in, out, just like that kiddo, you’re doing great_. 

The whir of Colonel Rhodes’ legs alerted Peter to his presence. He was crouching beside Peter, promising him they would find her. That they would have her back by the end of the day, if not sooner.

_How can you promise that? How can you know the people that took her won’t just kill her out of boredom or spite or lack of anything else to do?_

Peter looked up, eyes red, back stiff, hands shaking, and managed to gasp out, “Too much.”

Tony, _bless his goddamn heart_ , understood what Peter was saying immediately and stood up, urging the others back as well. “Okay, everybody, the kid’s having some technical difficulties. Out, out. I said _get out_!” Only when he resorted to raising his voice did the two suits leave. Rhodey soon followed, brushing a hand over Peter’s shoulder silently.

 _Technical difficulties_. That was actually a pretty clever name for the actual situation: Peter was experiencing overstimulation. It had flared up a few times before, more so around the first year after he had got bitten by the spider, then less and less as he adjusted to it.

(Then they had increased dramatically in the months following the homecoming incident. Tony was furious when he found out Peter had been struggling in silence, and immediately went about trying to either buy or invent remedies.)

Once the trio had left, Tony came back. He didn’t say anything and walked as lightly as possible so as to not disturb Peter. He went over to the bedside table and opened the drawer; waiting in there was a pair of noise cancelling headphones (purchases and then improved upon by Tony), black-out glasses (like a stronger version of Peter’s goggles in his original Spider-suit, also bought and adjusted by Tony), and a stress ball. 

Moving as slowly as possible, Tony carefully settled the headphones over Peter’s ears, slid on the black-out glasses, and placed the stress ball in his shaking hands. He immediately began to squeeze it, and Tony’s shoulders relaxed. Squeezing meant the kid was alright; squeezing meant he hadn’t slipped away from them all into the dark hallways of his young mind.

It took ten minutes for Peter to come back to him. The genius noticed the changes right away: Peter slowly looking around, probably wondering why he couldn’t see anything. Then he dropped the stress ball and removed the sensory killing tools, gently placing them off to the side. His voice was raw when his spoke, “Um, how long was I . . . ?”

”Not that long. Don’t sweat it, I could tell you stories of how many hours I lost in college, _wowie_.” 

“They took Aunt May.” Not a question, a statement.

Tony nodded. “Yeah, they did. Peter, I’m so sorry—“

”What for?” There was something slightly hysterical in the way the boy leaned forward; in the way his eyes glittered and he smiled calmly. “ _You_ didn’t kidnap her.”

Tony was taken aback. He didn’t like when Peter was hurt, but he _definitely_ didn’t like it when Peter was acting like—

(Like Tony’s own damn self, he thought, like Tony when he had been awake for too long; like Tony after the airport battle; after he woke up from a nightmare; after he had forgotten to eat for too long while creating new things to protect the world.)

“I should have done better, Pete, I’ll be the first to admit that.” Tony bowed his head, feeling too ashamed to even look at the younger boy right then. “I should have protected her better, made sure she was safer.”

Peter stood up and smoothed down his Midtown sweatshirt. “Don’t sweat it. If it wasn’t Aunt May, then they would have taken someone else, right? Someone from my school, maybe. Hell, they could’ve taken the guy who sells me my sandwiches.”

Tony rose with him, eyebrows drawing together. “You seem . . . very calm about this.”

“If there’s one things I know if life, Mr. Stark, it’s that Aunt May and I always wind up back together. Besides, I’ve got my best man on the case.” He clapped Tony on the shoulder (still smiling that strange smile) and walked out. 

It took Mr. Stark a moment to start moving again, he was so confused. When he made it into the hallway, Peter was nowhere to be seen but Rhodey, Scully and Mulder were still there. 

“You saw Pete, right?” He asked his best friend.

Rhodey nodded slowly. “Yeah. He just went down the hall, said he was gonna regroup for a moment. He was smiling all weird, too. Thought you drugged him or something.”

Tony rubbed a hand over his jaw. “No. I think he’s in shock. Should I leave him? I think I read somewhere that it’s not safe to leave people in shock by themselves.”

 “Mr. Stark, we really to focus. We need to ask Mr. Parker about the last time he spoke with May Parker; any enemies she might have—“

He cut off Mulder impatiently. “Don’t be stupid, they kidnapped her to get money from me. They probably saw that Peter was close with me and knew they couldn’t get to him so they went to the next best thing.”

Mulder bristled. “As far as I know, we’re the detectives here, not you.” 

Scully placed a hand on his partner’s shoulder. “We’re only here to help, but we need the facts to do that.”

In the short pause between Scully’s sentence and Tony’s response, FRIDAY spoke up. “Boss, I hate to interrupt but maybe you should know that Peter is currently attempting to activate three Iron Man suits in lab number two.”

”Oh, for fuck’s sake—you three, stay here. Rhodey, watch Mulder and Scully. I’ll be right back. I think.” He turned and broke into a jog down the hallway. “Fri, how close is he to activating them?”

”Fairly close. He seems to be struggling with suit C-24.”

Rolling his eyes, Tony grumbled a string of curse words he would never repeat around Peter and opened the door to the lab. “Hey, Pete, what’s up, buddy?”

Peter turned around quickly. He had tear tracks down his cheeks. “Go away, Mr. Stark.”

”Nah,” he answered casually. Tony walked further in, peering over the boy’s shoulder at the computer screen. “You have a typo there.” He used his pinky to point it out.

The boy sniffed heartily and fixed it. “I have to go get her.”

”Nope, you really don’t.”

Peter grew angry. He turned to Mr. Stark and stood up, shaking. “Yes, I do. I _do._ You don’t understand.”

Tony sighed. He could have sworn his heart was breaking, with the way Peter looked. “I do understand. I promise, I do. But you can’t go about it like this. There is more to the situation than just busting into the place with guns blazing.”

”Mr. Stark, I really don’t give a shit. She’s my family. She’s all I got, I can’t—I cant leave her. I can’t _lose_ her. I have to go get her. You don’t _understand_.”

“Yes, I do.” Tony reached out and placed his hands on Peter’s shoulders. It was kind of scaring him, how Peter was acting so unlike himself. He had never seen the young boy look so distraught or heartbroken.

”No, you don’t!” Peter shoved him off, eyes filling with anger. “You don’t understand any of it, Mr. Stark. I don’t have a choice, she could be hurt, or dying, or _something_.” 

“Pete, you gotta take a breath. I’ve got the best people on it, they’re already figuring out where she is, as soon as we got her location we can round up a team to go in there. But, Pete, I’m so sorry, but you can’t go in there. You’re a minor, no one knows you’re Spiderman, you _can’t_ go in there.”

Peter rubbed viciously at the tears under his eyes. “No, Tony, you—I can’t just wait here. I can’t do that. I can’t stand by and do nothing. Please, I _have_ to go.”

(The pair barely noticed it was the first time Peter had ever called him Tony.)

”I know, kid, I know—“

” _No you don’t_!” Now Peter was screaming. He was hopping between emotions so quickly Tony got whiplash. “She’s my family! You don’t understand because you don’t _have_ any family left!”

And that’s when the silence fell. 

Regret pooled in Peter’s belly so quickly he almost threw it up. He felt like his tongue had turned rotten in his mouth, the words stale in the air.

 _You don’t have any family. You don’t have any family, Tony. None. No family. They’re all dead. You have no family left_. 

He took a step back, the iron shield already sliding over his heart. 

“Mr. Stark . . .” How was he supposed to apologize for that. More tears spilled from his eyes. Everything felt like it whirling past him too much, too fast, but now it had all slowed to a stop in this moment between him and his mentor. “Mr. Stark, no, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that—I’m so sorry.”

Tony smiled. It was a horrible, cold, small smile that Peter never wanted to see. “Don’t sweat it, Peter. It’s a stressful situation.”

He wrapped his arms around himself and shuddered. “I didn’t mean it. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. It just slipped out—I didn’t mean to say it, I’m just angry!”

”Boss, Colonel Rhodes has May Parker’s coordinates.” FRIDAY interrupted the conversation. “I’m sending them to you now.”

”Great, thanks Fri.” Tony used the opportunity to turn away and pull out his phone. “Go ahead and start making a list of soldiers who are good to go in the next hour. Put me and Rhodey on there.”

”Sure thing, Boss.”

Peter stayed silent as he followed Tony out of the lab to the hallway where he left Mulder, Scully and Rhodes. The last man gave him a concerned look when he saw the tear tracks marking his face, but Peter just shook his head and avoided eye contact. 

It wasn’t until half an hour later, when Tony was stepping into his Iron Man suit, that Peter spoke up again. He walked forward and wrapped his arms around Tony, regardless of the steel separating them. “I’m sorry for what I said. You didn’t deserve that. And it wasn’t true anyways, you do have a family. You have me, and Rhodey, and Ms. Potts, and also Vision, I think. You have a family, Mr. Stark. Okay?”

Tony looked down at the boy and slowly rubbed his back. Warmth, like a drop of sunlight, fell in his heart. “‘Course, Pete. Of course I know that. Now you gotta let go so I can go get your Aunt May back, alright? You can watch the whole thing from here.”

Peter nodded and stepped back. He forced a smile and watched as his mentor flew off the roof, followed by Rhodes in the War Machine suit and a quinjet filled with every agent available, off to save Peter’s family. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DAY SIX GOT A LOT MORE POSITIVE FEEDBACK THAN I WAS ANTICIPATING AND IT MADE ME SO HAPPY THANK YOU SO MUCH TO EVERYONE WHO COMMENTED OR LEFT KUDOS OR BOOKMARED IDC ILY ALL also if you want to have more Peter interacting with the rogue Avengers let me know bc honestly I’d be hyped to write that 
> 
> Follow me on tumblr: jessicagoddamnjones 
> 
> Comment! I thrive off your comments! You can literally say anything! I read and reply to all of them because they’re all so special to me!
> 
> Btw: I’m tired as hell so forgive any mistakes and how shitty this may seem :(


	8. Fever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day eight is fever. Enjoy :)  
> Also: sorry if my chapters start to make no sense near the end, I procrastinate literally anything and everything possible which means I usually finish them up really late at night when I am Tired™️

“Can spiders even get sick?”

Peter glared at Tony from where he was bundled up in four different blankets, a hoodie, and baggy sweatpants. “I’m not a complete spider, Mr. Stark. I’m still a little bit human.”

He leaned forward and felt Peter’s forehead. “Do you feel hotter than earlier? I think you’re heating up.”

He dramatically swung his head like a giraffe to get Tony’s hand off it. “I don’t know. Spiders can’t thermoregulate.”

”Seriously?”

”How do you not know that?”

”I’m not the one who got bitten by one!”

”Did you go to first grade, Mr. Stark? Because they _teach_ this in first grade.”

Tony paused, looking distanct for a second before saying, “Actually, I skipped first grade, along with second and third. I went from kindergarten to fourth.”

Peter nestled deeper into Tony’s couch. “So what you’re saying is that I have a better education than you.”

”Nobody is saying that, but because you’re sick I’ll let it slide.” He adjusted the blankets around the boy; tucked them in tighter to make it more comfortable. Peter wriggled like a trapped worm. “Do you know what caused this?”

”Probably the bleach I took,” he answered somberly. 

Tony froze, horrified. “Are you kidding me?”

Peter rolled his bloodshot eyes. “Yes. I’m pretty _obviously_ kidding you. I don’t know what caused it; I thought my immune system was strong enough to protect me from little things like fevers.”

”And yet here you are,” he said smugly. “Completely at my mercy. I could put on a documentary about shoelaces and you couldn’t do anything to stop me.”

”Don’t you dare!”

”What are you gonna do, cough on me?”

Peter narrowed his eyes. “I will get you sick and then we’ll _both_ be stuck here. Is that what you want?”

Tony wrinkled his nose. He leaned away to pick up the remote and gave it to the boy. “I would hate that more than anything, thanks.”

”Then go!” Peter waved him away as best he could. “I can’t move even if I wanted to. Go  be a smart person, you mother hen.”

”I am not a mother hen!” Tony refused, offended. 

But Peter was already ignoring him, turning on _Star Trek_ and pulling the blankets closer around his head like a hood. “ _Go_. I’ll let you know if I get any worse—“

”—No, you won’t—“

”—Then FRIDAY will. She’s already monitoring me, right?”

He nodded reluctantly. Kid was smart, damn him. 

“Go, before I sneeze on you.”

The engineer rolled his eyes but backed off anyways. He left Peter a tired, sneezy, adorable mess on the couch.

* * *

 Two hours later, Peter was no more a tired, sneezy, adorable mess content to wait out his sickness with _Star Trek_ and tissues. 

He was curled up in a ball, blankets abandoned on the floor, TV shut off, eyes squinched shut, the image of sickly misery. “FRIDAY?” He managed to croak.

”Yes, Peter?” Was it his imagination or was her voice sympathetic?

”Could you please inform Mr. Stark that I am dying? Use those exact words, please.”

”Certainly, Peter.”

He mumbled a thanks and shoved his face into the cushions.

Back in his bedroom, Tony was working through the avalanche he had ignored in favor of spending time with Peter. 

“Boss?”

He spun around in his seat, thankful for the distraction. “Yeah, Fri?”

”Peter wants me to tell you that he’s dying.”

Two minutes later, Tony burst into the living room with half of the Iron Man suit on, his phone clutched in his hands, eyes wild, and brandishing an ice pack. “Peter? Are you okay? What’s happening? Are you too hot? Too cold? What do you need? Do you feel alright? Are you hungry? Should I—“

He was cut off by Peter groaning loudly into the cushions. “ _Shhhhhhh_!” He hissed. “Too loud.”

Tony winced and crept forward as silently as the situation would allow. “What’s the problem, buddy?”

With a sigh, Peter rolled over and faced his mentor. “Hurts. Everything hurts. Head. Chest. Legs. All of it.” He sounded absolutely miserable.

“Oh, kid.” Tony sighed in sympathy and carded his hand through Peter’s hair, softly ruffling the curls. “FRIDAY, do a full body scan. Figure out what’s wrong with him. Want me to get May up here?”

”No. She’ll only worry. I’ll just . . . wait it out.” He sat up with a groan low in his throat. A layer of sweat broke out on his forehead, and he took several deep breaths before he forced a smile. “See? Fine.”

Tony gaped at him in abject horror. Was this how Rhodey and Pepper felt with him? He truly didn’t give them enough credit. “You are very obviously not fine.”

”Yes I am.”

”No you aren’t.”

”I totally am.”

”Peter. No, you aren’t.”

”Yeah—“

”Peter.”

“Mr.—“

“Buddy.”

“Seriously—“

”Kiddo.”

”I’m—!”

”No. Just no. Just . . . Nuh-uh. Just . . . Lie back down.”

Peter rolled his eyes but gratefully collapsed back into the coziness of the little nest he had built. “You suck. I’m perfectly healthy. No need to call Aunt May. My super-duper Spidey immune system will get rid of it real quick.”

”Boss, if I may, Peter is showing signs of just a very bad fever,” interjected FRIDAY.

”Boom,” said Peter, “See? Nothing but a fever. I have a science headcanon—“

Tony sighed dramatically and rolled his eyes, shifting from his crouch next to the boy to sit on the couch. “Just call it a hypothesis, please, for the love of god.”

He paused, blinking at him in silence. “. . . So my science headcanon is that since my immune system has been holding off the sicknesses for so long, it kind of builds up, and once it finally breaks it merges into one big fever. So I just . . . wait this one out and then I’ll be set for like, what, two, three years?”

”Do you make it a point to make me worry?” Tony asked. “I have heart problems. You _know_ I have heart problems. And still, _still_ you insist on doing this to me. Why? Why are you so cruel to this poor old man?”

Peter laughed, then winced and pressed a hand to his abdomen. “Don’t make me laugh,” he said sternly, “it only hurts my stomach.”

“Good.” Tony tugged Peter to his chest and snagged the remote. “You deserve it for making me think you were dying.”

”To be fair, I was fairly certain I was.” Peter grabbed a handful of Tony’s shirt and adjusted himself to get more comfortable. He rested his head on Tony’s collarbone. 

“And what would I have been able to do about that?” The man wrapped his free arm around his kid

(God, When did he start referring to Peter as _his_ kid in his mind? When did that happen?)

and turned on Netflix. 

Peter shrugged. He tucked the blanket around the both of them so they would both be warm and said, “I don’t know, you’re a smart guy. I trust you.”

Tony smiled softly but remained silent, thinking.  _You should trust me, Pete. Even if you can’t trust anyone, please always trust me. I promise I won’t break it. I promise I’ll always be there for you, be it fever or stubbed toe or stab wound_. 

“I’m gonna get you sick,” observed Peter softly.

”I don’t mind. We’ll be sick and miserable together, and then Rhodey will take care of us. Then maybe we’ll get _him_ sick and your Aunt May will come and take care of all three of us. And after we get her sick—Pepper will come! Won’t that be a sight?”

Peter laughed softly. “Finally, all of you right where I want you. If you’re all sick then you can’t go out and get hurt.”

Tony really didn’t want to admit how much that borderline insult warmed his cold dead heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follow me on tumblr: jessicagoddamnjones   
> THANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOU for everyone who comments and leaves kudos it makes me so happy!!!!!!!  
> Let me know if there are any people or themes or anything in general you want to see in future chapters :)


	9. Stranded, Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day nine of whumptober is stranded ....... I should feel worse for putting poor Tony and Peter through this shit  
> Enjoy :)

Distantly, Peter was aware of a thought.

_ouch._

Distantly, the thought grew louder. 

_Ouch._

Then louder.

_Ouch!_

He opened his eyes. 

Sun. The sun, burning down on him. The sun blistering his skin, blinding his eyesight, draining him of energy, seeping into his bones and weighing them down with exhaustion. 

 _ouch_.

What the hell was going on? Peter allowed his head to fall to the side and saw, horrifyingly, the Iron Man suit, half buried in the sand, leering out at him like some poorly made scarecrow. It was battered and dirty and scratched and, perhaps most importantly, still.

Was Tony in there?

 _Mr. Stark_? He tried to speak but realized he couldn’t. Whether it be from injuries sustained during whatever battle had landed the two of them here, where nowhere began, or because of dehydration, Peter’s mouth did not produce sound. He swallowed—or tried to. His throat was so dry he could feel the walls of it rubbing together, chafing each other. _Mr. Stark_! 

If he was able to speak, it would be nothing more than the whisper of wind. Maybe it was better he stayed silent. If he was able to speak, then that meant he would be looking for a reply, and if he _didn’t_ get a reply then

(Well, then Peter would thoroughly lose his shit, he supposed.)

that meant Tony wasn’t _able_ to reply. 

Peter closed his eyes. He tried to get her his surroundings, but his head was pounding so hard it threw out all thoughts as soon as they entered.

_SandsunhotthirstyhurtouchpainTonyTonyTony_

There was a noise to his left. 

Peter summoned up his will and looked that way, now. There was nothing but sand. Sand and more sand. 

_Sand. If you see sand but no waves, then you’re in the desert. I’m in the desert. Mr. Stark and I are in the desert. Huh._

He could only figure things out one miserable thought at a time; he brought sentences together like beads on a string.

_Mr. Stark, where are we? What happened?_

_ouch_.

Suddenly, a bolt of fear hit Peter like a sledgehammer—what if Tony was gone? What if he wasn’t in the suit? What if it was just Peter, just little old Peter in the middle of who-knows-where with nothing but a headache and a pile of useless, damaged metal to save himself? 

He rolled over, ignoring the lightning rods of pain in his bones, and crawled as best he could to the suit. As he got closer he could see in better detail the scrapes and dings on the armor. There was one long, jagged scratch down the left arm, revealing the silver metal underneath. Whatever had scratched him was strong enough to dent the metal as well, for in places it was nearly torn in half. 

 _Please be okay . . . Please be okay_. . . He silently chanted it while barely daring to brush his hand over the tarnished torso. Peter allowed himself a second to breathe and resolutely refused to let fear contaminate his thinking, then hooked his fingers under the mask and pulled.

That it came off so effortlessly was worrying in itself: the mask was supposed to protect one of the greatest minds in the twenty-first century, not bend to the will of a badly injured and dehydrated teenage boy. 

Underneath the mask was

(Here is where Peter would look back and send thanks out to any God or Goddess that might have been listening in that small thirty second window of eternity.)

Tony’s face. Tony’s badly bruised and bloodied face, but still his face. 

Peter decided he had never seen a prettier sight. 

It took him nearly three hours to dig Tony out of the sand. He had to pause frequently and catch his breath. Occasionally he would get black spots in his eyes and blink rapidly for a minute or so until they faded. 

(Even then, the edges of his vision danced with yellow, purple, and red clouds.)

The sun was flirting with the horizon by the time Peter had fully uncovered Tony. Some of the lower half of the suit was nearly in shreds, for some reason. Nearly his entire left calf was exposed, and the legs were barely connected to the torso. 

He prayed Tony would be alright. Peter didn’t normally pray—he and God were kind of at a standstill—but he would gladly pray for the rest of his life if it meant Tony would still be alive, if he would sit up and start talking and let Peter know that everything would be okay. 

(He prayed because he didn’t want to be alone, because he did not want to be a teenager in the desert with nothing but fear in his soul and an empty shell of a man in an empty shell of a suit next to him. He prayed because he was selfish, and he knew he was selfish, so he prayed some more to try and relieve himself of that selfishness.)

Peter leaned forward and placed two fingers on the pulse point of Tony’s neck. 

(One time, in freshman year at Midtown, in his Health class everybody had to learn how to take a pulse. He remember pairing up with Ned and cracking up because Ned could never find his pulse. He remembered pretending to be dead and going completely limp over his desk. It didn’t seem so funny now.)

Was that a pulse, or just the throbbing pain that pulsed through Peter’s entire body? 

The boy leaned back and tilted his head back to stare at the steadily darkening sky. Soon it would be dark, and then what? He still couldn’t remember what happened. He didn’t even know where exactly he was. Either way, Peter was sure he had read something, somewhere, that said deserts get freezing at night. And what else? Coyotes, wolves, snakes, scorpions. Oh yes, many animals came out to play once the sun wasn’t around. 

Peter didn’t want to be around for that.

It was while he was staring at the sky in desperation that he heard it—

“Kid?”

It was not a healthy voice, nor a happy voice, nor even a moderately okay voice, but it was _a_ voice, and that meant the world to Peter Parker. It meant he was not alone, not stranded, not without _hope_. 

Peter still couldn’t speak, but he hoped his actions said enough. He turned to his injured mentor and pressed his hand against his bloody cheek. 

(The blood was bone dry, and when Peter removed his hand some of it stuck to it and flaked off like bits of paint.)

Tony’s eyes were wide, searching, and Peter felt a twist in his gut when he remembered watching a blind man walking down an aisle in the store once—his eyes were eerily like Tony’s were now in the way they didn’t latch onto anything and didn’t even register what was right _there_.

Was it possible that Tony had been blinded in the accident? 

Yes, Peter knew. Yes, it was entirely possible. That did not mean he had to accept it right away, of course. It just meant it was a possibility. 

Thankfully, Tony’s eyes locked with the boy’s. Peter could see the relief shade them, and felt like a weight on his shoulders had suddenly been ripped off. It was enough to make him weep.

(If only he had the hydration enough to do it.)

”Kid?” Tony asked again. Perhaps wondering why he wasn’t speaking, or what was happening, or why they were in the desert. 

Helpless, he shook his head and merely grabbed Tony’s hand. He clutched it as tightly as possible, because somewhere in the accident his powers had fled from him, and he no longer had to worry about crushing Tony’s hand as he might once have.

(That was another fear: that his powers might not _come_ back, even if he replenished his fluids and ate everything he could and slept enough for a thousand men.)

Tony looked around. He had a lot of blood in his right eye, but his left one was relatively clean. He moved a bit, and for a moment Peter thought he was having a heart attack, but he was actually just trying to sit up. 

Peter helped him up.

Oh, what a relief it was to have Tony conscious. Even if he could not do much more than look really confused and croak out a few words, it was more than before. 

Tony was _alive_. He was blessedly alive. 

Tony would save them. He was a genius. There was nobody better to be stranded in the desert with, Peter told himself. It was Tony Stark, for god’s sake. He was a genius. And it wasn’t like people wouldn’t be looking for them! As soon as the two of them weren’t wherever they were supposed to be, there would be a world wide manhunt.

”Kid?” Tony asked for a third time. 

Peter led his mentor’s hand to his throat and shook his head, trying to get his point across. 

Tony’s brows furrowed. “Can’t speak?”

Peter nodded.

”Oh. You’re okay, though? You have your—“ He broke into a coughing fit, so bad it sounded like he was about to hack up a lung. Tony listed to one side like a ship during a storm and supported himself on his left arm. “—Your livers and kidneys?” He managed to choke out. 

He nodded, hands fluttering around the older man’s shoulders like two helpless little birds.

Oh, well. The manhunt would start eventually, but Peter hoped it would be before Tony or himself got any more hurt than they already were. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I decided to really mix things up by breaking this chapter into parts, but still having the future parts follow the prompt of that day.  
> For example, tomorrow is bruises, so Tony and Peter will be in the exact same situation they are now, almost right where I left off, but I’ll work the bruises prompt in. I’m really excited for this!!  
> Follow me on tumblr: jessicagoddamnjones   
> Let me know what you think by commenting! I read each and every single one and try to reply to all of them too, but for some reason my phone’s been glitching out and closing the page whenever I try to do that so if I don’t reply to your comment: it’s because my phone is whack.


	10. Bruises; Stranded Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oh boy. Ohhhh boy. Enjoy :)

Peter hated the desert. He really, _really_ hated the desert. Enough for anger to weigh down his feet like blocks of cement with every pained step he took.

After a lot of careful consideration, Tony had decided to leave the suit behind, as it was torn to pieces anyways. “It’ll only slow us down, Pete.” He had, however, taken the helmet, as that was where the tracking device was located, and they were both still holding out hope that someone would find them.

(Hope that was slowly draining with each weary step.)

There _had_ been a plane—a quinjet—crash, Tony told Peter. They were on their way to a science conference on the other side of the world during Tony’s weekend, but there was a problem. Nobody knew what it was, but it caused a small fire to start in one of the engines, which caused one of the quinjet walls to get ripped off. The engineer had barely enough time to suit up and grab Peter before they were being sucked out and into the sky. At this point, Tony had paused for a second, shame covering his eyes. Then he told Peter that on the way out, he was in such a panic to make sure that he was holding onto Peter that he accidentally crashed into a jagged part of the wall, damaging the suit. That was why they couldn’t have just flown to safety. The Iron Man suit got torn to hell on the landing, because he had landed with his feet first and slid for a long period of time before coming to a halt (which was also why he was half buried when Peter woke up). 

Hearing all this helped Peter to remember it himself. It also made him start crying, but that was another story. 

(Tony had been there anyways, and he had drawn Peter into his arms and stroked his hair and told him it would all be alright.)

The sun was setting when Tony woke up, so they had taken the gift of the cool nighttime and started walking. They wrapped their arms around each other for support and set off on unsteady legs.

And now here they were. Two days later and starving. Peter had spied a puddle of water not too long after they started walking, so the pair drank from it until their bellies were full and aching, regardless of how dirty it probably was.

That was the last time they had drank something. They had yet to find anything to eat.

For the first day, they attempted to speak, to carry on a conversation. They debated where to go, when to rest, who had gotten the coolest bruises from the crash, anything to keep their minds from wandering. 

By the second day they had stopped speaking. So quickly it was quashed out; that silly, childish belief that the boogeyman couldn’t get you if you kept on speaking. 

The desert _was_ the boogeyman. Peter and Tony were traipsing across his body, and he could squash them any moment he chose.

You want a little spoiler alert? They were found on the third day.

It was the events between getting up again on the second day and passing out when it ended that made it seem like a thousand years.

It didn’t take long for the pair to realize they needed a plan, a _system_. So they organized everything they could: Peter would look out for more water, Tony would look for food. Peter would scan the skies for any rescues helicopters, Tony would watch the ground for approaching threats. They decided to take turns keeping watch at night. The first day, Peter kept watch and Tony slept. The second day, Tony stayed up and Peter slept.

”Pete. Kid. Kiddo. Buddy. You gotta get up. We got to go,” Tony whispered. He poked one crooked finger into Peter’s neck and watched as the boy twitched in his sleep before opening his eyes.

He didn’t speak at first. Merely took in his surroundings. Then, the boy sighed like he had the memories of a thousand stranded desert nights in his mind and said, “I thought for a second that we weren’t here. Thought we were back at the Tower.”

Tony’s heart twinged. “Sorry to disappoint.” He forced a chuckle and helped Peter stand.

No further words were exchanged while they walked. They were each too caught up in their own thoughts and worries to try and voice them.

(That would come later, much later, when they had unlimited water to drink and unlimited food to eat and they were in the Tower and finally alone and finally brave enough to start speaking about it again.)

Peter couldn’t stop thinking about his Aunt May. How scared she would be when she got the news that his quinjet had crashed—just like his parents and their plane. Honestly, that was the worst part. The fact that he had gotten into the same kind of accident as his deceased parents held much potential for a mental crashing, which was why he firmly refused to think about _how_ he had gotten into this situation and rather on what it would be like when he got out. He pictured hugging May so tight she couldn’t breathe; telling Ned how much he loved and appreciated him; eating a million pizzas; falling asleep in his enormous, infinitely comfortable bed. 

Tony’s thoughts were filled with Pepper and the rogue Avengers. He was afraid Pepper would think him dead and not even bother with a search party. He was afraid of what the Avengers would do now that he wasn’t around to regulate them. Most of all, he feared the rogue’s talking to Pepper. He feared them convincing her that Tony was the enemy, that he should be left to rot in the desert. Tony made a list about all the things he would never take for granted again. 

1\. Pepper. Everything about her. Her laugh, her smile, her yell, her fashion sense, the way her eyebrows always quirk whenever someone talked about something unexpected. Anything and everything.

2\. Water. That’s it. Anything pertaining to water.

3\. The Tower. He had a billion dollars worth of anything he could ever want at the tips of his fingers and he completely _neglected_ it!

He was so caught up making a list, and Peter was so caught up in his fantasizing that neither of them noticed the growling until it was right upon them.

Without their noticing, a pack of wolves had crept up.

Peter noticed it first. He froze—which nearly made Tony tip over, mind you, he was leaning pretty heavily on the boy—and elbowed his mentor in the side. “Tony,” he said in a fierce whisper, “Listen.”

Tony listened. 

Growling. For some reason, it reminded him of bacon popping and sizzling in a pan, even though it sounded nothing like that.

Slowly, fearfully, they turned around. 

Five wolves slowly circled them. 

“Shit,” cursed Tony. He immediately placed himself in front of Peter, already thinking of ways to get out of this. He had learned to fight everything and anything _extraterrestrial_  or _enhanced_ . . . Never animals. _Think. Think, for fuck’s sake_!

“They don’t look too happy,” observed Peter. He had turned so they were back to back, each facing at least two wolves. 

Tony felt his heart stop dead when he realized that it was up to _him_ to make sure Peter didn’t get hurt. “They rarely do. You know, I once asked Pepper if I could get a wolf, but she said no. Joke’s on her. I could’ve used the knowledge from that to save us here.”

Peter swallowed hard as a dirty brown wolf pulled its lips back in a snarl. “What’s the plan here, Mr. Stark?”

”Gimme a second.”

Truth be told, he wasn’t even that concerned about the plan. The only thing running through Peter’s head was the rainbow of bruises on his torso. He had taken a look at it when he took first watch, but wished he hadn’t. His chest was more blue and purple than pale white. It was horrifying to have so much skin be damaged and be hardly able to feel it. Peter had to have at least _one_ broken rib, right? Well, he was thinking about how much it would hurt if the wolves pounced. They would probably put their paws directly on Peter’s chest. They would probably give him completely new bruises.

(They would probably kill him.)

Tony was just about to suggest that they throw their hands up and yell really loudly when the unthinkable—which really should have been thought already, considering the circumstances—happened: one of the wolves lunged. 

But not for him. Not for Tony’s aching self.

It lunged for Peter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there’ll be a part 3 tomorrow!   
> Also I’m so fuckcigotnf tired sorry for any mistakes please point them out to me  
> Follow me on tumblr: jessicagoddamnjones   
> Let me know what you think :)


	11. Stranded Part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part 3 of stranded is heeeere! The original prompt for this day was hypothermia but THEYRE IN THE DESERT so I’ll combine that prompt with tomorrow’s :)

When Peter was eight years old, he used to have this recurring nightmare. It happened so often that he would stop sleeping because of it. When Aunt May found out, she called a child psychiatrist and had him talk to her for what felt like a very long time, and the doctor eventually came to the conclusion that it was the trauma of losing his parents that caused the nightmares.

No frickin’ duh. 

Anyways, the nightmare went like this:

He was invisible, in the middle of the desert. His feet were buried in a light layer of sand, like he had been standing there for a long time. The ruins of a plane was beside him, and passengers who had survived the crash were crawling out and milling about. 

And Peter, he was just _standing_ there. And he didn’t know why. And it was pretty obvious he wasn’t part of the crash, because all the passengers were dirty and bleeding, and Peter was still wearing his clean pajama set decorated with Thor’s hammer over and over again. There wasn’t a scratch on him!

In this dream, he would always just look around, wondering what was going on. He never moved. Never talked to anyone. Just watched the people crawl out of the plane.

Except. 

_Exceptexceptexcept_

Except the people didn’t _stop_ crawling out. Even when it was obvious that that many passengers couldn’t have survived, even when it was obvious that the plane wouldn’t have been able to fit all those people, they still kept coming, like blood gushing from a wound.

(A wound, a wound, a gunshot wound.)

And soon Peter started to panic, because there were so many people, and they were all grown-ups, and he was just a little runt of a kid, and none of them were looking down so none of them could _see_ him, which meant that they were all bumping into him. He remembered wondering why they didn’t spread out—they were in the desert, it‘s not like there wasn’t plenty of room!—and why they weren’t all as scared as he was. 

But more people kept crawling out, and he got more and more crowded, and the people pressed in tighter and tighter and his feet _wouldn’t move_!

It was when he was about to start crying that he noticed everybody was wearing the same clothes: a pilot’s uniform. Everybody. Over and over again, the same crisp outfit on every walking, talking body. Which was odd, Peter thought, because he could have sworn they were all dirty and bloody and wearing _normal_ clothes when they crawled out. 

(But by then, there were so many people that he couldn’t even see the plane anymore anyways.)

So Peter was looking around—he was still in his _own_ pajamas, thank god—watching all these people walking around when he saw his parents. They were both crying, holding onto each other very tightly. The only reason he noticed them was because _they_ were wearing normal clothes, too! And they were holding a photo, waving it in people’s faces and asking them something. 

Somehow Peter knew, with the kind of certainty one always had in dreams, that it was a picture of _him_ they were holding, and the question they were asking was, “ _Have you seen this boy? Have you seen this boy?_ ” 

Suddenly, Peter was desperate to just be in his parent’s arms again, to have them hold him and stroke his hair and tell him it would all be alright. He started crying. 

The most frustrating part was that they were _right there_! And they couldn’t see him! 

Out of nowhere, Peter could move again! So he started pushing through the people, screaming for his mom and dad, just absolutely barreling through the crowd.

And then, as he watched, his mom and dad turned to look at him. They saw him! But they weren’t moving. They were just standing there, crying, the picture in their hands, watching their little boy come ever closer.

Halfway there, Peter felt a little weird. He was moving slower. It was getting harder and harder to move his feet. Upon looking down, he saw that he was _sinking_ into the sand—he was only going deeper and deeper with every step he took. 

With sudden, brilliant clarity, Peter remembered why he hadn’t moved earlier:

_It’s quicksand, butthead._

And that was usually when he woke up.

Anyways, for some strange reason, the dream ran through his head like a movie on fast forward when the wolf jumped at him. 

He was right; it placed its paws directly on his chest when it jumped. It hurt like hell. And when his back hit the ground and the wolf’s entire weight was put on him, it felt like he was dying. He actually blacked out for a second, but only a second, and when he opened his eyes he saw a gaping maw baring down on him—no doubt to rip out his throat—and felt the hot breath ran his hair back. Peter was too hungry to care much.

But before the wolf had a chance to get a belly full of Spider-Man, there was a shout, and a dark blur tackled the wolf off of him.

Allow me to repeat: an actual person, a living, breathing person, supposedly with a functioning brain, decided to throw their entire body on top of a bloodthirsty, vicious, possibly starving _feral wolf_. Guess who?

Fuckin’ Tony. Of course. Who else would be so stupid and self sacrificing? 

(Ignoring the fact that there was nobody else there besides the two of them, no one.)

Peter stared at the smooth sky for a second in shock before he realized what was going on. Then he rolled over and lumbered to his feet, wishing more than anything that he had his strength back. 

What he saw was something straight out of a Liam Nelson action film. 

Tony Stark, on the ground, hands wrapped around the upper and lower jaw of a snarling wolf attempting to rip his throat out. His legs were wrapped around the wolf, so it rather looked like they were wrestling. Tony’s face was screwed up into a grimace. 

 _Jesus_ , thought Peter. _He must be using all of his strength there. Wow_. Then he actually registered what was happening and ran forward as best he could. 

(He didn’t quite notice it then, but the second Tony had stood up to the original wolf, the other ones took off.)

The boy stumbled forward and all but fell on top of the wolf. He had the presence of mind to wrap his arms around its neck and hold on tightly. 

The wolf jerked its entire body in an attempt to throw off Peter, but he wasn’t having it. Peter gritted his teeth and held on tighter with every shuddering wave of fear down his back.

Tony yelled again, something he couldn’t hear, and then something hard hit his head. A rock? Who knows. Who cared. Peter barely remembered why he was even on the wolf in the first place. 

He saw Mr. Stark crawl out from under the wolf and scramble away a few feet. There, he picked up a long, thick branch and gestured wildly at Peter.

Oh. _Oh_. How clever. Peter counted down in his head, then let go and used the momentum from the wolf’s shake to roll away, out of range. 

Before the wolf had much time to react, Tony was running forward, smacking it with the branch. Even Peter winced at the satisfying noise it made when it made contact with the wolf’s big head.

The animal tilted to one side and stumbled before crouching to pounce at its new opponent. However, Tony left it no time to get ready, because now he was jabbing at the wolf, hollaring nonsensical words. Peter merely watched with a kind of detached amazement. Somewhere between the wolves circling them and being pinned by one, Peter’s mind clocked out.

 _How neat. Look, now he’s going for the exposed side . . . If he was smart, he would go for the throat, but he’s probably very tired right now_. Peter absentmindedly brushed his hands down his shirt and tilted his head. 

Tony and the wolf circled each other in a twisted version of Man Vs. Wild. The wolf was bleeding from one leg. Tony’s face was caked with so much blood it looked like a battle mask. 

Peter saw the black spots appear in front of his eyes again. He felt rather sick, so he backed up a few steps and sat. Then he keeled right over and passed out.

Tony scared the wolf off. Peter woke up. You knew this already. And you know the rest, too.

The wolf isn’t the point. The point is the plane.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why yes I know this sucks. Listen y’all I have really been slacking on the prompts I know but I’m gonna get my shit together this weekend, promise, y’all deserve better than my shitty fics lmao  
> Comment if you liked it, or don’t, I’m not your mother.


	12. Electrocution + Hypothermia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is my interpretation of what happened after Steve and Bucky left Tony in Siberia. It has both electrocution and hypothermia to make up for the Stranded series. Enjoy :)

As it turns out, when a thousand pound super soldier and a thousand pound knock-off super soldier beat the shit out of someone and then break the only thing keeping their heart from going still, it messes up their armor.

It messes it up a lot.

_(You have to get up.)_

Tony wheezed out his breaths. The cold bit at his nose and froze the blood on his face. The gray sky above him promised snow and depression.

His fingers burned when he lifted them to grip the neck of his suit. That they burned was either very good or very bad. The suit didn’t give. Damn. He had been holding out hope that in the process of killing him, Steve would have damaged the suit enough that it would just sort of fall apart on him, but apparently he only made it impossible to take off, effectively trapping him inside the armor.

It could be worse. Tony could be dead.

 _(He_ should _be dead.)_

The arc reactor was flickering like an old lightbulb, trying to work properly but unfortunately hindered due to the fact that someone had shoved their death frisbee into it.

Tony grunted and rolled over, using his arm to support himself. He managed to get into a crouch before the arc reactor flared and

_(the)_

_(the suit)_

_(the suit was)_

He passed out.

* * *

 

When he came to, the sky had darkened to a navy blue. The few stars visible through the heavy covering of clouds burned as brightly as a fireplace in the dead of winter.

 _Steve, you bastard,_ he thought _. You fucked up the suit._

It had _electrocuted_ him. His trusty, reliable suit, built solely for the purpose of protecting him and not so much for harming, had given up. It had gotten so beaten to hell that all the fail safes he had put in were gone, were _destroyed_.

What the fuck.

For some reason, Tony’s thought drifted to Peter Parker. The kid. The saving grace, if he really wanted to think about it.

(He didn’t.)

He felt bad for dragging the teenager into his mess. But he was desperate and stupid and and didn’t want to lose and didn’t want them to lose either. He wasn’t quite sure what he was thinking when he recruited him. But now he was thinking that he was stupid, and shouldn’t have tracked down Parker. It was a risky move. It was a selfish move.

Tony swallowed and attempted to get up again, this time much slower. He rolled over onto one elbow and shifted around so he was was kneeling, half lying on his side.

Pain flickered through his body like an old lightbulb, shifting from his ribs to his face to his hands to his legs to his—

_Steve, you bastard. You fucked me up. Fucked me up good._

With aching joints and bruises blossoming like flowers over his cold, dry skin

_(he may as well already be a corpse)_

he pushed himself to his feet. “Ohh, God. _Oh_ , this is gonna be a bitch . . .” He huffed and he puffed and he stumbled like a newborn deer, but he managed to get to his feet, cursing all the way.

He didn’t know much about hypothermia, but he was pretty sure that when you were so cold you started to sweat you were pretty much screwed.

He began to stumble out of the building in which he had been abandoned. Occasionally, the suit would spark him and he would fall down, twitching and clenching his teeth so as not to scream and disrupt the peacefulness of the night.

He was found by one very angry Happy Hogan almost two hours later. By that time, he was so frozen that frost had made itself a home in his hair. The blood was so frozen to his face that it peeled off a good deal of skin when he had tried to rub it off. His lips were so numb he could barely move them, but he mustered up the will to crack a grin and whisper, “S’crazy, right? Steve fucked us up.”

Later on, when he had recovered and was listening to Peter Parker’s six voicemails remorsefully, Happy confessed that he wanted to beat the shit out of him for saying that. He still wasn’t a hundred percent sure he shouldn’t. Tony again grinned and said, “Glad to see some people don’t change.”

Happy has passed him a cheeseburger he smuggled in at his boss’ request and told him to not push his luck.


	13. “Stay.”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day thirteen is only the word “stay”. Hope you enjoy :)

Pepper Potts had a glare that could rival anyone’s. It was mostly used on one Tony Stark, though she did find herself occasionally using it on Peter, when he had been particularly reckless (not stupid, because Pepper would not call Peter Parker stupid in a million years) or on Rhodes, when he had been hanging around Tony for too long.

But for the most part: Tony.

Which was why, when she turned it on him one regretful Wednesday evening, he was not so much effected by it as he used to be. 

He slowly sat up, groaning low in his throat. “Listen, Pepper—can I call you Pepper? Great. Listen. To err is to human. Isn’t that right? Which means that— _which means that_ I only grow more human with each mistake that I make. Isn’t that right? So shouldn’t you be proud of me? Every broken bone means I’m only growning more and more as a human being!”

She stared at him in disgust. To be frank, her heels were hurting her because she hadn’t had the time to break them in, she hadn’t had anything but a cup of coffee that was 90 percent espresso, and also she was pretty sure her mascara was smudged. Dealing with her wacko husband was the last thing she wanted to deal with—and yet here she was. “Stay. I mean it. _Stay_.”

Tony sighed and straightened up in bed. “Aren’t you supposed to love me?”

”I’ll love you once you’re better.”

”I don’t think this is legal, keeping me here like this— _ah_!” Tony, who had been maneuvering to get out of bed, suddenly pressed a hand to his abdomen and tumbled onto the floor.

A jolt passed through Pepper, ran down all of her limbs and echoed back into her heart. She dropped her purse and rushed over as quickly as those dammed heels would allow. “Tony? _Tony_?” She dropped to her knees and grabbed the sides of his face, jerked him up and shook his slightly. “Oh, Jesus, uh, I don’t know what to—what do I do?”

Her husband grunted and stared at her impassively. No words passed his lips, but his eyes seemed to say, “ _Do I know like I know what’s going on_?” 

She dropped him, apologized when he head knocked painfully against the tile floor, then lunged for the button to summon the nurse. Pepper smacked it with the flat of her hand multiple times. “Goddammit, Tony, you just _had_ to get out of bed! This—is—what— _happens_!” With the last word, she curled her hand into a fist and slammed it into the button. “Ugh!” Dropping back next to him, she gently moved him so most of his upper body was lying on her lap. 

Several gasps of pain jerked Tony’s body. His hands clenched into fists by his sides. “Don’t—can’t—“ he struggled to speak.

Several pairs of footsteps became louder and louder from the hall, and eventually three nurses burst into the room, each carting some kind of equipment. One of them, a woman with red hair, hooked her hands under Pepper’s shoulders and unceremoniously hauled her away. 

“Sorry, Miss Potts, but you’re going to have to back away,” she said with an apologetic smile. 

“I—I don’t know—He just fell out—“ Pepper dropped into a chair and covered her mouth with her hands. 

“We’ll take care of it, ma’am,” said one man with a buzz cut. “S’our job.” With a grunt, he lifted Tony onto the bed. 

The third nurse shined a penlight into Tony’s eyes and began murmuring to the redhead. 

The same redhead rubbed Pepper’s shoulders, almost shaking her entire body. “Was he complaining of any pains or aches before he fell?”

“No.” Pepper shook her head, trying to peer around the nurse to see her husband. “No, no, he wouldn’t tell anyone he was in pain if his entire life depended on it. He was just—ready to go. Getting antsy. Goddammit, I fucking _told_ him to stay.”

But it seemed she had nothing to worry about. Already, she could spy Tony twitching on the bed, making odd popping noises. “Puh, puh, puh. Puh, puh, puh.”

Fear pricked her spine. Oh, god, was he losing his mind? “What’s _wrong_ with him?” She demanded, wringing her hands together.

The nurse seemed to be amused. “Nothing, Ms. Potts.”

The noises advanced from _puh_ ’s to _pup_ ’s. “Pup, pup, pup. Puppuppup!” 

“I . . . I think he’s trying to say something,” offered the third nurse, a blonde lady. 

What? What was he saying? What could be so important to Tony that he just had to say it at this _exact_ moment, right in the middle of his crisis? 

“Pepper!” The word finally fell, legible, from his lips. “Pepper, Pepper!”

 _Okay_. He got some brownie points for that. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m alive! And still updating. Like I said, I’m not abandoning this work ;)
> 
> Comment, let me know if you enjoyed!


	14. Torture

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Isn’t this the prompt everyone’s been waiting for? Enjoy!

“Peter? Peter, kiddo, could you open your eyes for me?” 

_Mr. Stark. Tony. Tony Stark. Where are you, Tony Stark? When did you get here?_

Peter opened his eyes as asked. There were no fluorescent hospital lights overhead to blind him, only the uneven, rocky ceiling of the cell into which he had been thrown. He looked around blearily. There was no one there to speak to him, either. No Tony Stark. 

When he attempted to roll over to press his aching head into the cool stone, he was hindered by a chain around his left ankle. “Oh yeah,” he said aloud. “Forgot about that. Silly Peter.” The teen adjusted himself so he was cheek-to-cheek with the floor. He stared blankly at the wall. 

His The gray, gray, wall. 

“Silly Peter,” he repeated. “Silly, silly, silly Peter Parker.” 

The teen kept on repeating those three words—‘Silly Peter Parker’—in different variations over and over again. Over and over again. Over and over and over, until his voice cracked like an eggshell and tears started to rain down from his eyes and he couldn’t breath past the sobs in his throat and still, _still_ he repeated them until his crying stopped him from being able to speak any more. 

* * *

“Hey kiddo. They got you pretty beat, huh?”

Peter jerked up, gasping, one thin fist flying out to punch whoever was there. But there wasn’t anyone to receive his attack, so it went long and crashed into the wall. A groan of pain flew from his mouth at the contact. “ _Shit_ ,” he hissed. “Goddammit!”

”Language, kid, your Aunt May will never let me see the light of day again if she thinks I’m letting you talk like that.” 

Again, Peter gasped. That was Tony. What was Tony doing here? And more importantly, why hadn’t he taken the chains off of Peter’s ankle yet? “Tony?” He whispered, voice bouncing off the stone around him. “Are you here?” 

No answer. No answer, no matter, he probably didn’t want to draw attention to the fact that he was here. 

He pressed his back against the wall, eyes wide and flying around the room like a fly looking for a surface to land on. His breath came quickly and left quicker. The cell he was in was tiny, barely enough space for him to lie down with his legs unfolded. Not to mention the chain, which was there more to humiliate him more than anything. The door was heavy and metal and always cold as a dead body when he happened to brush up against it. There was no handle on the inside, and Peter had long since been too weak to attempt breaking through it.

And now—Tony was speaking again, his voice low and scared. “Listen, kid, we don’t have much time. Don’t move, okay? Don’t move a single muscle. We’re trying to find you—be still!”

Because Mr. Stark told him to, Peter froze. And froze. It was like ice itself had dripped into his veins. Ice and stone and marble and all things cold and hard. He didn’t move. Not a muscle, not an inch. 

He. Didn’t. Move.

Hours passed as Peter waited for Tony. The only thing that kept him from moving was the undying trust that built up in him from knowing Mr. Stark, from knowing that he would always rescue him, no matter how far or how difficult it might be.

Hours and hours and hours. Or maybe seconds. Or maybe days. The pain began slowly. It started in his ass, understandably, but quickly sprouted in his spine. Then his thighs started aching as well. It was only a matter of time before every twitch of his eyelid produced a needle of pain. 

But still, he did not move. Even when his chest ached with every breath and every move, no matter how minuscule, made him want to cry, he didn’t not move; still frozen through and through with that unbreakable loyalty. 

And then, when it was so silent he could hear the walls whispering, there was a voice. “You’re doing great, Pete. Now I need you to do one more thing for me. Can you do one more thing?”

“ _Yes_ ,” he breathed, barely more than the scrape of an arm against the wall.

”Great. We’re all here and ready to get you home, but we need you to do one more thing. All you have to do is open the door, Peter. Just get past the door and you’ll be home free. You can have pizzas and naps and watch all your favorite movies with me and your Aunt May. Does that sound good?”

” _Yes_.”

”Yeah, it does. Just get through the door. That’s all you have to do.”

Get through the door. The door. The stone cold door which was as unmoving as the earth itself. He could do that. And even if he couldn’t, he had to.

Peter swallowed. He moved, just a twitch of the fingers, just to see if he could. Barely, but it worked. When he tried to move more, pain seized his body like a vise. Strangled noises of protest ran from his mouth like water from a faucet. The chain pinched his ankle uncomfortably when he struggled to his feet. He swayed and placed a hand on the wall to steady himself. Black spots danced in front of him, blinding him, nauseating him. 

It took Peter twenty minutes to be able to fully move without wincing or blinking like someone had thrown dust in his eyes. 

Then he turned to the door and began to scope it out, searching for weak spots as if he hadn’t done all this already when he first arrived. 

There were no weak spots. And no cracks in the molding. No gap under the door. It was as solid as the group beneath his feet.

”Pete, what’s taking you so long? You have to hurry!” 

Tony sounded like he was right on the other side of the door, waiting for him, risking everything yet again to save his ass. “I’m trying,” he gasped out. “I don’t think I can do it, Mr. Stark. There’s no way to open it from this side.”

He felt—worthless. Less than nothing. He felt like a _bug_ , like _dirt_. It was his fault he couldn’t open the door. Peter wasn’t sure how he knew, but he just knew it was his own damn fault the door wouldn’t open.

”It’s now or never, Peter. We’re running out of time here.” Tony sounded worried, but at the same time exasperated, exasperated in the same way he was when Peter messed around in the lab and forgot to clean up, exasperated in the same way he was when Peter kept on quoting things Tony never understood. 

“Wait—Tony, no! Don’t leave me here!” Panicking, Peter threw himself at the door, slamming his shoulder into it. “Don’t leave me! _Don’t leave me, Mr. Stark!_ ” His cries of desperation filled the room, high and keening. “Tony, please!”

His voice was faint when he spoke this time: “Sorry, kiddo, but we can’t risk it. We gotta go.”

”No! No, no, no!” Peter threw himself blindly at the door—again, again, again, begging for Tony to stay and praying the door would break. “ _Please_ , Mr. Stark, just give me a few more minutes! Please!” When hurling himself at it did nothing, he started punching it, kicking it, clawing at it in hopes of finding a weak spot he may have passed over earlier.

”Mr. Stark, don’t go!”

His hand connected with the metal.

”You can’t leave me here!”

The skin broke; blood weeped from his knuckles.

”Please, I’m so close!”

He started crying. 

“Mr. Stark! _Tony_!”

Tears burned his cheeks.

“Please, Mr. Stark, _please_!”

His breaths were shallow and quick.

”No—please—Tony—I’m s-so _close_!”

Peter broke, cracked, shattered into great, wailing sobs that bounced off the walls and right back into his gut. 

Tony was not coming back.

Tony had left him there.

* * *

Five stories above that cold, dark cell with that cold, dark boy who was convinced he would die there, there was a room. 

This room was filled with computers and monitors and keyboard and control boards. And on each computer screen there was security footage playing; each screen showed the footage from a different cell. 

James Abernathy and Edward Limmark stood and watched, with bated breath, as Peter Parker threw his entire soul into trying to destroy the door. The two of them knew the door to be five feet thick and, therefore, impossible for Peter Parker to break through. 

“Amazing, isn’t it?” Said James Abernathy in a state of wonder. “It’s working just as well as I thought.”

Edward Limmark hummed his agreement, then added, “I suspect the enhanced healing actually helps our case by telling the cells to grow _around_ the implant instead of rejecting it altogether.”

”Indeed.”

”What’s he hearing right now?” Asked Edward.

A ghost of a smile twisted James’ lips. “Right now, nothing. But if I do this. . . .” He delicately typed something in on the keyboard closet to the screen they were watching. Before he was even completely finished, Peter was backing away from the door, hands flying to his face, boney spine bending like a flower in the wind so he could crouch in the corner. “Now he’s hearing Stark tell him to back up because they’re going to try and blast the door.” He typed some more; Peter peeked around his fingers and scrambled on his hands and knees to the door, where he hesitantly touched it with the very tips of his fingers. “Now he hears Stark getting murdered.”

”Fascinating,” breathed Edward Limmark. “Remarkable. And he really can’t tell it’s not real?”

James Abernathy sank down into a chair with a satisfied gleam in his eyes. “He hasn’t got a clue.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oops.
> 
> Comment and let me know if and what you enjoyed, thank you so much for reading! :)


	15. Manhandling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some of y’all wanted a sequel ... I can’t deny you
> 
> Enjoy!

There was no way to tell time in his cell. There was no way to know where he was, or when he had gotten there, or if he had ever even been anywhere else but in the cell.

Gradually, over a period of time, Peter began to believe that the world outside of his cell didn’t exist. And the weird thing was, the more he thought about it, the more it made sense.

All his memories came from the cell. Everything else seemed to just . . . slip away. It all seemed to take a shiny, too-bright quality, like that of a movie set. 

Was there ever a Tony Stark? Had a woman named May Parker ever existed, much less his supposed parents Mary and Richard?

Was his name even Peter Parker?

It didn’t sound like a real name. It sounded like a name one would pick out of a newspaper. Easy enough to read, but difficult to imagine on an actual person. 

At first, he tried to hold onto his memories like there was nothing else in the world more important—and there wasn’t. But after a while he just let them slip away like sand in an hourglass. Only this time there was no one to flip it over when it all collected at the bottom.

What was weirder was that all of his bodily needs—eating and drinking and using the bathroom and such—all seemed to not matter. He never went to the bathroom, and he never ate, and he never drank, and he never slept exactly, but it didn’t seem to effect him.

He didn’t sleep. He just blinked and then wasnt tired anymore. 

It‘s hard to explain. He didn’t pass out, per se, but whenever he got hungry or thirsty and he was, say, leaning against the wall farthest from the door, he could blink and suddenly he wouldn’t be thirsty or hungry anymore, and he would still be leaning against the wall farthest from the door, but something would be different. It was like he had been moved and then placed back very carefully; or like a great deal of time had passed by, only he couldn’t remember being moved, or being replaced, or anything in between. 

It frightened him. 

So the cell became his life, his entire life, the only life he had ever known. 

He stayed sane by making up fantasies in his head where he died. He imagined it in a million different ways: the time gaps stopped and he starved to death; the room became airtight and he suffocated; the walls started closing in and crushed him; one time he imagined taking the chain attaching him to the wall and wrapping it around his throat. But right as he thought ‘ _what’s stopping me?_ ’ he had another one of those time gaps and his chain was gone.

Blink, it’s gone. Blink, it’s gone.

Eventually he forgot he ever had a chain in the first place.

And that was it. Peter just . . . lived. He just existed. Nothing more. 

After all, he had no choice.

* * *

Eventually something changed. He couldn’t say one day it changed, because he wasn’t quite sure days and nights were even a thing, but at some point in his existence, something changed.

Something big.

It started when he heard something, which wasn’t unusual, as he often imagined hearing things. 

But this wasn’t his usual imagining, this was different. This wasn’t the sound of a gun cocking or a wolf snarling or, inexplicably, a soft _thwipping_ noise he could never understand. This was a _crash_. This was a _bang_ and a _crunch_ and a _smash_ that made Peter crawl closer to the door of his home and press his ear to it, desperate to hear more. It didn’t stop, only got continuously louder as time passed.

And then.

 _And fucking then_.

There were footsteps, clear as day. Footsteps coming closer and closer to his door, running, clunky, slightly metallic and odd, but definitely footsteps. 

And suddenly, Peter didn’t want to see them. He didn’t want to see whoever was coming to get him, because that meant that something was different, that something was happening, that something was changing, and there was nothing more terrifying to person who was living a unmoving life than change. 

Peter shook his head unconsciously when the footsteps stopped, right outside his door. He crawled into the corner of his cell and pulled his knees to his chest. _Don’t come in_ , he thought. _Please don’t come in._  

But they didn’t hear him.

There was indescribable noises from the other side, then a curse—a _voice_ , an actual, human _voice_ , from the _outside, cursing_ —then a high pitched whirring noise. 

Then the door exploded off its hinges.

Peter flinched into his knees, too scared to look up.

_Don’t come in, please don’t come in._

But they didn’t listen.

“Peter?”

A single word, spoken with a thousand emotions.

Peter looked up. In front of him, with tears in his eyes, was a man in a suit of red and gold armor. His palm was glowing blue, but his eyes were fixed directly on the boy in the corner. “ _Peter_ ,” he repeated. “Pete. Holy shit.”

When the man made a movement as if to come closer, Peter held his hands out as if in defense. “You aren’t real,” he said. “You don’t exist. Nothing exists. I’m—I’m imagining this.” Near the end, tears of his own broke the barrier he had in place to keep them back. The thought was tempting, so tempting, to allow the man to save him, but it was for nothing. After all, there was nothing outside of the cell. Everybody knew that.

The man crouched and reached out a hand. “Peter, I _am_ real. You know me. I’m Tony—Mr. Stark, remember? You gotta get up, Pete. You gotta come with me.”

Peter didn’t, couldn’t, wouldn’t move. “No. Nonono, that’s not . . . I don’t know you.”

“Yes, you do,” insisted the man—Tony. “Your name is Peter Parker, you’re sixteen years old, you’re Spider-Man. You’re smart, so smart, and I _know_ you can remember me, you just have to try. If not me, then remember May. Your Aunt May, who sucks at cooking and once punched me in my face when she found out I was helping you behind her back? Remember her, for God’s sake.” 

“No,” he croaked. “You aren’t real. Nothing is real.”

”Pete, you have to get up. I’m so sorry, but you have to get up. We have to go, we don’t have a lot of time.”

There was nothing outside his cell. There was nothing outside his cell. There was nothing outside his cell. If Peter left it, where would he be? He would—he would have to figure out what to do. Where to live. He would have to decide who he could trust and who he couldn’t. If he left the cell, he would be . . . absolutely helpless. Anybody could hurt him.

Peter shook his head. He choked over his words, spit out a muddled refusal like it was burning his tongue. 

Tony sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. He looked over his shoulder into the hallway and sighed. It looked like he was contemplating something. Then he looked at Peter, lips pinched together so tightly they disappeared. “Okay kiddo, I’m sorry about this.”

The boy barely had time to part his lips to ask what the man was talking about before the man was lunging forward and grabbing Peter by the waist, like he weighed _nothing_. He was slung over his shoulder and kept in place with a restricting arm over the back of his knees. The blood rushed to his head as he watched his world literally turn upside down. 

“Jeez, I actually think I miss when you were heavier,” muttered Tony. He turned on one metal heel and marched them out.

Peter knew he should have been protesting, fighting, something like that. He could have at least complained about the sharp edges on the metal shoulder that his stomach kept on being pinched by. But he was more focused on the fact that there was a hallway outside of his cell.

A hallway!

All this time—how long?—Peter hadn’t dared to imagine what could be on the other side of the door, but now. . . . Now he could see it. He could see the bright lights lining the halls, the other doors forming a pattern.

And as they followed the same path Tony had taken to get to Peter, he saw that every single cell before his had been blasted open. Hundreds of them, all empty, all without a door.

Every single one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LMAOOOO I CANT EVEN FINISH WHUMPVEMBER ON TIME RIP  
> anyways I’m still updating even if it’s slow so like please pay attention to me
> 
> I finished this while on the toilet. And by that I mean I literally sat on the toilet with my phone, did my business, then said to myself “You aren’t leaving until you finish this chapter.” SO I HOPE YOU LIKE IT IF YOU DID THEN COMMENT AND LET ME KNOW I READ AND REPLY TO ALL OF THEM BECAUSE I LOVE ALL OF YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU 
> 
> \+ more thanks to those who consistently comment and read even w my whack ass updates you’re the best you know who you are! <3


	16. Bedridden

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 16 is bedridden.
> 
> Thank y’all for all the comments and such it means everything!

“Mr. Stark? Sir? Tony? Mr. Stark? Are you awake? Is this a bad time? Mr. Stark? Should I go?”

Tony sighed, counted to three in his head, and opened his eyes. “Breath, Pete. I’m awake.”

Peter nervously smiled and shuffled his feet in the doorway of Tony’s bedroom. “Uh, hi.” Now that the man was actually responding, he seemed to have lost whatever nerve he had in the first place.

”Come on in,” Tony said, gesturing with the hand that wasn’t in a sling. “If you’re here for a rousing round of repartee with your favorite Avenger, I’m sorry to say that you’ll be very disappointed. These pain meds are slowing me down.”

The boy carefully stepped in, paused, then asked, “Door open or closed?”

”Close it. Wilson keeps on trying to brief me on the last mission he went on, so I’m hiding from him. I mean, I know it’s technically my job and all to listen, but god, I’ve got a broken leg, can’t he show some respect?” Tony struggled into a sitting position and rolled his eyes. 

Peter closed the door and bounced into the room, seemingly brimming with young teenage hopefulness. ”I was thinking—“

”Never a good idea.”

”About how you’re, like, stuck in here and everything, and I mean Ms. Potts is in Japan and, no offense, but you kind of scared everyone when you yelled at them after Mr. Clint, I mean Barton, I mean Mr. Barton did that thing with the, uh, the arrow and the condom—even though it didn’t even touch me, and it was kind of a solid joke once you start to analyze it—”

”Get to the point,” drawled Tony.

Peter blushed and casually sat down on a chair that wasn’t piled with papers or clothes. The rest of his words came out in a rush, low under his breath, like he was afraid Tony would reprimand him for saying them. “I-figured-you-would-get-lonely-in-here-all-by-yourself-so-I-wondered-if-you-wanted-to-maybe-have-a-sort-of-sleepover-maybe-and-watch-some-movies-I-don’t-know-it-might-seem-stupid-feel-free-to-say-no.”

Tony slowly squinted his eyes, jaw slack with confusion. He took a slow breath and said, with deliberate quietness, “What the fuck, Peter.”

”Um . . .” Peter wrung his hands together. “Is that a _you don’t understand_ what the fuck or a _no_ what the fuck?”

“It’s a _you were talking too fast and I’m kind of high right now so I didn’t hear any of it_ what the fuck. Also, don’t say fuck.” Tony rubbed the thick cast covering his right leg. 

Peter licked his lips, which were feeling oddly dry at the moment. “I figured that since you’re all alone in here, you might be getting kind of lonely so. . . . So, I dunno, I thought it might be a fun idea to have, like, a sleepover, or something. If you want to.”

As the seconds ticked by, Peter felt the ball of nerves in his stomach steadily grow. God, how stupid _was_ he? Who asks a grown man to have a sleepover?

(To be fair, it wouldn’t have been the first time one of them slept in the other’s bed. Nightmares were a real bitch.)

Tony sighed and then moved over a few inches. “We’re gonna watch every single _Harry Potter_ movie, though, and their gag reels.”

”Seriously? I didn’t even know they _had_ gag reels!”

”Warner Bro’s sent me them for my birthday.” Tony patted the empty spot next to him and added, “You gonna leave me hanging, kiddo? You’re going to leave a cripple all alone, with no company? You’re just going to get my hopes up then crush them? I even warmed up the spot for you. _Men_.”

Peter laughed and happily clambered into his usual place tucked into Tony’s side, under his arm. “You’re one of those men, you know. I don’t even shave yet.”

The engineer reached out and pinched Peter’s cheeks—which were indeed baby soft. “Thank god for that. The day you start shaving is the day I get to retire.”

”Hey, don’t joke about that!” Peter pinched his side. “As soon as you retire you’re going to run off to a private island you bought in secret when you were in your twenties with Pepper and leave the rest of us all alone.”

”Don’t be silly, Petey-pie,” cooed Tony. “I’ll bring you and your Aunt May with. Everyone else can die.”

The first movie started up courtesy of FRIDAY, and the pair lapsed into silence, leaning on each other.

And that was where Pepper found them five hours later. Still leaning into each other like they were both the flowers and the wind. Both asleep. Tony’s cheek on Peter’s head; Peter’s arm around Tony’s waist. 

She took thirty pictures and let them rest. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I,,,,, am so sorry,,,,,, but I just,,,,, want to get this series over with. 
> 
> TBH I have another Irondad and Spiderson story planned out—except this one is ACTUALLY planned out, so it’ll have actual regular updates and long chapters that make sense. I’m not going to begin writing it until I’m finished with this, however. Lmk if you want to know more about it and I might just let something slip ;)
> 
> I HOPE YOU ENJOYED PLEASE COMMENT WHAT YOU THOUGHT AND WHAT YOU HOPE TO SEE AND WHAT YOU HAD FOR LUNCH AND SUBSCRIBE TO THE SERIES IF YOU WANT EMAILS EVERY TIME I UPDATE AND I LOVE YOU AND GOODNIGHT


	17. Drugged

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I decided to get darker for this one Bc I’ve been pretty lacking on the whump part of all of this
> 
> So day 17 prompt is drugged ....... yikes
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

Peter was pale. 

He was—he was too pale. It was like all of the blood had not just drained out of his face, but out of his body. 

Tony’s heart stopped dead in his chest for a second when he made eye contact with the boy. His eyes, his chocolate brown eyes that had shone with tears too many times in his life  were staring at Tony in . . . what? Fear? Sadness? 

“Peter?” He didn’t realize he had dropped the screwdriver he was holding until it clattered onto the ground. “ _Peter?_ ” 

Peter’s”Ue lips moved soundlessly. He was gripping the edge of a metal work table. Usually, that white-knuckled grip would be bending the metal like Play-Doh. Now it was as solid as it was for everyone else. “Mr. Stark?” He rasped. 

Jumping up from his stool, he ran forward, blood rushing through his ears. “No—no. No, no, what happened? Peter, what happened?” His voice broke on the last question when he reached the young boy, desperately gripping the soft t-shirt he was wearing and yanking Peter into his chest. 

Tomy couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t process anything beyond the fact that Peter was hurt, _Peter_ , his _kid_ , something was _wrong_ with him. 

“My chest,” whimpered Peter. “My chest hurts, Mr. Stark.”

”FRIDAY, get the entire medical floor ready, we’re going down right now. In the meantime, do a scan. Find out what’s wrong with him.” Tony crouched a bit and hooked his arm under the boy’s knees, slid the other one around his shoulders to cradle him. Every since the spider bite, Peter had once told him, he had less bone density and was, therefore, much lighter than most people his age. 

“ _On it_ ,” affirmed FRIDAY. After a brief pause, in which Tony managed to haul ass halfway across the room, she said, “ _It appears his immune system isn’t working properly. He has  harmful bacteria infecting him. Symptoms are, according to my observations, chest pains and lightheadedness.”_

”Send the diagnosis to the med team. What the hell is it?” Tony demanded through gritted teeth. The elevator doors slid open before he had a chance to slow, and the medical bay was already chosen as the destination. 

“ _It’s not in my records, boss. It may be a new kind of bacteria never seen before. It could just be an expired food. I don’t know._ ”

Peter let out a high pitched gasp when Tony accidentally jostled him getting into the elevator. Tony murmured his apologies and pressed his lips to Peter’s sweaty forehead. “You okay, Pete? How you doing?”

”Hurts,” whispered the boy. “Chest . . . eyes . . . don’t like it.”

“Neither do I, buddy. Don’t worry, I’m going to make it better, don’t worry, it’s all going to be fine soon.” Tony tightened his grip on his kid and darted out of the elevator. He unceremoniously dumped him on a stretcher waiting by the doors and grabbed the closest doctor. “Did you get the—“

The doctor pushed Tony back a few steps and said, “Don’t worry, Mr. Stark, we’ve got everything under control.” 

“What’s wrong with him?” Tony asked, standing on his tiptoes to stare over her shoulder. His kid was being steered away to a sterile room, somebody already shining a flashlight into his eyes and asking him to rate the pain on a scale from one to ten.

”We’ll figure that out,” she told him. “Do you know what caused this? Did he drink, eat, do anything that could have been dangerous?”

He racked his brain, trying to think past when he first noticed something was wrong. It was difficult, when the memory of Peter’s drained skin and glassy eyes was filling his mind like air in a balloon, suffocating everything else, getting bigger and bigger until it squished all other memories against the walls of his mind. Tony took a sharp breath and rubbed his hands over his face. 

 _Christ, you need to focus_ , he told himself. _What was Peter doing? What was he doing?_

“Oh, I’m such an idiot!” Tony whipped out his phone from the pocket of his work sweats and ordered FRIDAY to send the security footage from just before Tony noticed to his camera roll. It was there barely two seconds later.

The doctor leaned her head in to see the screen, her blonde hair almost brushing Tony’s cheek.

The footage showed Tony completely immersed in his work, nodding and humming slightly whenever Peter addressed him. Peter, who was merely fiddling around with a Roomba he wanted to reprogram to fight other Roomba’s when it saw them. Peter dropped the pair of tweezers he was holding and stretched, arching his back like a cat. He stood up and ambled over the the fridge Tony had tucked into a corner, which was filled with equal parts edible and expired food they kept forgetting to throw out. The two watched as Peter reached in and grabbed an energy drink—an energy drink that Tony usually went for.

All at once, it clicked. “Poison,” he gasped out, “Someone tried to poison me . . . and Peter drank it.”

She stayed silent, and they watched as he opened it while moving back to his seat. He took a drink and immediately set it down, making a funny face. He didn’t do anything then, but only a few moments later he was standing up and rubbing his chest. Peter turned to look at Tony and stumbled forward a few feet.

The doctor gently pushed the phone down and said, “I understand this is probably very frightening for you, Mr. Stark, but we need to get the can he drank from to diagnostics so they can figure out what it is. If we know what poison was used, then our chances of saving him go up.”

Tony was nodding along like a child listening to their mother. His brain was scattered all over the place, thoughts flitting from Peter to Pepper to Peter to Pepper to Peter to

”I can get it for you,” he said, feeling rather like he was talking through a mouth full of cotton. Tony turned on his heel and walked back to the elevators. Again, they opened before he had a chance to press the button.

Tony was infinitely grateful that he programmed FRIDAY to have near-human intuition. 

The elevator opened into his workshop. The tall, ten-inch thick windows allowed the afternoon sunlight to illuminate the entire space. And there was the drink, innocently sitting on the work table Peter had been working at. Tony grabbed it and sprinted back to the elevators. “FRIDAY, send me to the diagnostics lab. Text Pepper, tell her I won’t be making the 6:30 meeting. And—and text Peter’s Aunt May. Tell her to get down here ASAP. Send her your diagnosis.”

” _You got it._ ” 

There was already a scientist waiting for him at the elevators when he stepped out. Without any preamble, she took the can from him and started over to her lab table. “Get back to the med floor,” she ordered over her shoulder, “I’ll send the results as soon as my team figures it out.”

Tony nodded, nodded, nodded his way back into the elevators and back into the med floor and all the way back out and all the way—

Peter was screaming.

He broke into a run, past the previous doctor who had told him to get the drink, and past the several emergency operating rooms and all the way to the end of the hallway where Peter’s screams were coming from. He slammed into the door, practically falling into the room. Almost immediately, there was a doctor pushing him out, babbling about germs and unsanitary conditions. “What’s wrong with him?” Tomy choked out. “Why is he screaming?”

”We’re working on that,” answered the doctor. He pushed Tony back a bit more.

”Well, work harder!”

The doctor successfully maneuvered Tony into a cushioned waiting chair outside of the room and said, “We’re working as hard as we can, Mr. Stark.”

” _Work—harder_ ,” he growled. ”when is he going to be—not like that?”

”Right now all we can do is try and manage the pain while waiting on results from the lab. The best thing you can do for Peter is stay calm and inform his parents.”

He didn’t bother telling him that Peter’s parents were dead. “Already did.”

Now the doctor was looking slightly annoyed. “Well, it was poison, right?”

He nodded.

”Then focus on why someone might have wanted to poison you, and how they did it. The first forty-eight hours are the most important, you know.”

”I thought that was for missing people.”

”Well, any crime, really. . . .” The doctor shrugged and patted Tony’s shoulder. “The worst thing you can do is panic and interfere. Okay? We know what we’re doing.”

He so desperately wanted to tell the doctor to fuck off, but he now had new things to focus on. _Find out who did it,_ he thought. _Find them. Before they get away._

The slow, simmering rage in his chest rose to a boil. 

Tony rose and brushed past the doctor, already slipping into his carefully constructed mask he wore around people he didn’t trust. He pulled out his phone and texted the group chat he was in which consisted of Rhodey, Pepper, Happy and Peter’s Aunt May. They mainly used it to talk shit about Peter when he was being stupid.

_Ignore everything you see on the news for the rest of the day._

Pepper replied first: _Oh god what have you done_

Then came Happy: _I was going to ignore it anyways_

Rhodey’s reply: _Tony I swear to god do NOT DO ANYTHING UNTIL I GET THERE_

May didn’t answer. Probably in the car, or she might’ve left her phone at work when she rushed to leave after FRIDAY texted her.

He ignored all of their replies and called Pepper. She answered on the first ring. “Tony, darling, I love you, but dear sweet Jesus stop whatever you’re doing and maybe think about it for a few—“

”I’m dead.”

”What?”

”Well, technically, dying. At least, that’s what you need to tell everyone.”

What sounded like a breath of relief came down the line. “Oh, I thought it was something serious.”

Tony made an offended noise. “Excuse me?”

”Tony, you’ve tried to get me to help fake your death almost five times. The answer’s still no, so please just—“

”Peter’s been poisoned,” Tony blurted out. He glanced around himself and took the elevator to his private floors. 

A long pause. “ _What?_ ”

”He drank from a drink meant for me. Now he’s in the med bay, and they don’t know what’s wrong with him, and I sent the drink to the diagnostics lab, but they’re still looking for stuff, and FRIDAY thinks it may be some kind of man-made bacteria supposed to poison me, or something. I don’t really remember. She definitely said the word bacteria. Anyways, someone tried to poison me, and I intend to find out who.”

”Oh, my god. . . .” There was a shuffling noise in the background, the the sound of a zipper. “I’m on my way. I can be there in maybe two hours, give or take. Is he alright?”

”Well, Peps, last time I was down there he was screaming like a cat in water, so I think no.” Tony took a deep breath and rubbed his face. He began pacing from one end of the room to another.

”I’m confused, what does this have to do with faking your own death?”

Tony pinched the bridge of his nose. “We let it leak that I’m either dying or dead, haven’t decided yet. Whoever did this is gonna do something when they hear the news. If they killed me because of the company, then they might make a move to take over. If it’s a grudge, then. . . . _Shit_. Fuck. God, I’m so stupid! I’ll call you back— _stay where you are!_ ”

He hung up on Pepper’s protests and called Rhodey.

”Tony, what did you do? Is it something stupid? I’m too old to be dealing with your stupid bullshit, man,” Rhodey began in a tired voice. 

“It’s not stupid!” Tony exclaimed.

”Then continue.”

”I’m going to fake my death. Actually—yeah, no, I’m going to fake my death.”

A pause, even longer than the one with Pepper. “What the fuck, Tony?”

”Listen, I haven’t got a lot of time, okay? I considered faking my slow and painful death, but I think I just need to go for it, you know? Go big or go home, right?”

”Tony, please, I’m begging you, for once in your life, _go home_.”

”Listen, Rhodey! This is serious! After it gets leaked that I’m dead, whoever’s doing this might try and go after my family if it’s because of a grudge, so I need a 24/7 security team around Pepper and you ASAP.”

”Slow down,” ordered Rhodey. “Who’s doing what?”

Tony groaned and fought the urge to bang his head against the wall. “Peter got poisoned because he drank a drink meant for me, therefore someone was trying to poison me, which could be for one of two reasons: the company or me, personally. I don’t know who it is or why yet, but me dying will draw them out.”

”How?”

”I literally just explained all of this to Pepper—well, actually, I halfway explained it then hung up to call you. Anyways. If it’s for the company, then after I ‘die’ they’ll try to make a move on my spot. If it’s personal, chances are they’ll go after my family. I don’t know yet.”

”This is all so complicated,” said Rhodey. “Why can’t you just trace the drink back to where it came from through cameras?”

”It came in with the weekly shipment, I’d have to trace down the company that delivers them, then try and focus on that one can with a million others that look just like it just to see if somebody tampered. Nah, this is faster. I have to call back Pepper.”

Once again, he hung up on another person telling him to stop, drop and re-evaluate. 

“Pepper?”

”Tony?”

”Yeah—I was thinking, if you’re—“

”What the _hell!_ You can’t just hang up on me right after saying that you want to _fake your death!_ ”

“Yeah, about that—if you really have to leave the hotel, then could you look really sad? Maybe cry a bit, mess up your hair? And make sure the paparazzi sees it, thanks.”

He hung up and texted Happy: _Go buy some mourning flowers. Look really sad about it. Let the cameras catch it._

Happy must have gotten laid recently, because he merely texted back a thumbs-up emoji and left it at that.

Tony called back Pepper. She picked up already telling him to stop calling her and hanging up so quickly. 

“Also, probably shouldn’t eat or drink anything unless it’s been tested for poison, thanks.” He hung up. 

Next up was Rhodey, who answered so quickly he must have been standing by and waiting for the phone to ring. _Just like high school_ , he thought. 

Just as Rhodey began speaking, FRIDAY announced that May Parker had arrived and was on her way up. Tony dimly remembered giving the Parker family members complete access to his personal floors after May found out about Spider-Man.

“Call you back,” said Tony. He terminated the call and dropped the phone onto the couch to meet her at the elevators.

The opened, and she stormed out. 

May Parker was, when angry, a storm given flesh. She was thin and knobby, all sharp corners and straight hair, and when she marched out of the elevator she looked like a soldier going to war.

 _I suppose that makes me the president who started it_ , mused Tony.  

“Where is he?” She demanded. She was still wearing her scrubs.

Tony held up two placating hands. “He’s in the med bay getting help as we speak. The can he drank from is getting tested in diagnostics. Don’t worry, May, my team is some of the best there is. They’ll have answers in no time.”

May shoved him by the shoulders. Angry tears turned her eyes glassy—just like Peter’s were. “You were supposed to protect him,” she said through gritted teeth. Splotches of red bloomed on her cheeks. “He was supposed to be _safe!_ ”

Stumbling back a step, Tony quickly told her, “It was meant for me! He drank from one of my usual drinks, nobody was targeting Peter.”

She paused, breathing heavily and looking livid still. Just as she opened her mouth, FRIDAY spoke.

” _Sorry to interrupt, but both the diagnostics team and the medical team have news._ ”

Tony scratched his beard and said, “Get them both on a FaceTime with me. Has Rhodey been calling?”

” _Colonel Rhodes and Ms. Potts have both been texting and calling for the last five minutes._ ”

”Excellent. Fantastic. I’ll deal with them later. May, do you wanna—“

”I’m staying,” she said flatly. 

Tony threw his hands up and moved over to the massive TV at the head of the room. “Why not,” he muttered underneath his breath. 

The TV turned on, split into two sides. The diagnostics woman was on the right, the medical team on the left. They must have chosen to allow the woman who first calmed Tony down to speak for them, because she was looking at a clipboard with furrowed brows.

”Mr. Stark, there’s something really weird about this—“

”It’s completely insane but it looks as if—“

They both stopped and looked at each other. 

May stepped up beside Tony, her arms crossed. 

The engineer waved at the blonde woman, the one from medical. “You go first.”

She cleared her throat and nodded. “There’s no symptoms,” she said. “We checked his chest cavity, his heart, his blood sugar levels, most everything. There’s nothing to be causing this. My team is working on drawing blood right now—we think he may have been drugged.”

”Drugged?” Parroted Tony.

The woman from diagnostics jumped in then. “That makes sense,” she said, “There’s no poison in the drink. I think it’s a convoluted version of the drug GHB. While GHB is usually used to induce anesthesia, this seems to be the same concept, but inverted. It’s made to encourage hyperactivity to the extreme.”

Well, Peter was already hyperactive to the extreme to begin with.

The diagnostics lady—he should probably learn her name—continued. “However, there’s also an added ingredient which I don’t recognize at all. It could be the cause of his pain. Shelby, have you done a brain scan?” She addressed the doctor. 

Shelby nodded. “Results should be here in about two minutes.”

“What’s Peter doing right now?” Asked Tony.

Shelby glanced over her shoulder, then back to the screen. “When I last saw him, he was saying it felt like his chest was caving in. Like there was an elephant sitting on him. He was even wheezing. . . . But there isn’t anything wrong with his chest.”

”So, what, it’s phantom pain?” Asked May. “Like when someone loses a limb, they can still feel it hurt sometimes?”

The doctor did finger guns.

Tony frowned at the floor, a slow idea forming in his mind. If he was correct, and he didn’t want to be, then . . . God, hadn’t Peter been through _enough?_

“I don’t understand,” May was murmuring when he zoned back in. “Is it possible that someone just _invented_ their own drug to make someone feel like they were being crushed? That sounds too specific to be a thing. And if it wasn’t actually happening, what’s the point of doing it except to create a temporary inconvenience?” 

It was easy to forget that May was a nurse when she was making banana bread and pouring him a glass of milk, but it’s moments like these that reminded Tony of how smart she truly was. _Maybe she’s throwing herself into figuring this out for the same reason I am_ , Tony thought. _For a distraction._

Or maybe she was just more calm because she knew there wasn’t any real, physical pain.

Tony found himself rubbing his left wrist like it was a genie’s bottle and he wanted three wishes.

(One. For Peter to stop feeling pain. Forever.)

Shelby and the diagnostics lady—he was sure her name was something with a C we’re discussing the possibilities of creating a drug purely capable of making someone feel crushed.

(Two. To go back in time an hour.)

May had one hand on his shoulder. She was squeezing reassuringly and telling him even through it was proving to be a pretty fixable, if unfortunate situation, she was glad he had contacted her.

(Three.)

”Here are the results,” said Shelby. She held up a copy to the screen while looking over her own. Tony’s eyes couldn’t or wouldn’t focus on the paper. “You seeing this, Carlie?”

The diagnostics woman nodded. “Send me a copy. It looks like—“

”There’s unusual activity in the temporal lobe,” agreed Shelby.

May hopped in with, “More specifically, the limbic system.”

The trio—Tony was kind of vacant at the moment—all paused to soak in that information.

(Three.)

“The memory area,” said Carlie. “Is the mystery ingredient stimulating his limbic system?”

”Not stimulating. More than terrorizing it,” said Shelby.

May took off her glasses and rubbed them on the edge of her scrubs. “So . . . It’s just bringing back unpleasant memories?”

Shelby shrugged. “Do you think the hyperactivity drug could be mixing with the mystery ingredient to bring back _only_ unpleasant memories?”

”I wouldn’t know how,” said Carlie. “It seems impossible to only be able to target bad memories. I mean, how would it even know which ones are good and which are bad?”

They all fell into silence. 

(Three.)

Tony was a broken record, skipping over the same thoughts over and over again. His mouth felt numb.

Shelby cleared her throat. “Peter was complaining of chest pains. Like, really bad chest pains. Fatal ones, if we’re to believe his assessment. Ms. Parker, has Peter been in an accident lately where he may have been under extreme pressure?”

May and Tony locked eyes.

Yes, he had, incidentally. He had an entire fucking building fall on him. An entire building, because Tony was an (arrogant, selfish, stupid, worthless, no good son of a bitch) idiot who took away his suit. An entire building, because of _Tony_. 

And now Peter was reliving that. He was reliving that awful night because of Tony. Because of a drink meant for Tony. Because of an enemy who Tony wronged.

Peter had never wronged anybody. 

(Three. That Peter Parker had never met Tony Stark.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly just do with this what you will, idek anymore. 
> 
> Let me know if you enjoyed, what you wanna see in the future, all that jazz. I hope y’all like this chapter Bc I think it’s one of the longest ones!
> 
> COMMENT OR WHATEVER IM DESPERATE FOR VALIDATION THANKS FOR READING!!


	18. Hostage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 18 is hostage.  
> *sips tea*

There was something sticky and warm on Peter’s face.

That probably wasn’t one of the better ways to wake up, but it was the only thing he could focus on, because it was kind of cementing his right eye shut while drying. 

He groaned softly. A series of indecipherable words fell from his mouth like baby teeth. 

“Oh,” said a pleasant voice, “you’re awake.”

Peter opened his left eye a smidge. The light in . . . wherever he was . . . was dim and weak. He could barely make the outline of a tall man. 

Opening his eyes made him away of a throbbing in his head. “Mm?” He was lying down. Peter place a hand next to his head to try and lift himself up, but found himself being unable to. His hand was restrained?

”This is perfect timing. I thought you’d be out for a couple more hours, at least. Guess that ’ _humans always prosper_ ’ thing isn’t a joke, huh?” 

Sighing through his nose, Peter scrunched his nose and pressed his forehead into the ground he was lying on. It felt cold and hard, like cement. Was he in a basement?

How did he even _get there?_

Footsteps came closer to his body. “Don’t go falling asleep on me now, kiddo. I need you up and at ‘em for what I have planned.”

There was something about that—about him calling Peter kiddo just _irked_ him. It didn’t make him feel good.

 _Oh, right,_ he thought through the pounding in his head. _Only Mr. Stark gets to call me that. I wonder where he is. We’re supposed to hang out this weekend . . . or was it last weekend? What day is it?_

He only asked the last question out loud. 

“No need to worry about that,” answered the stranger. 

He made a noise of confusion. 

“Can you sit up, kiddo?”

Sighing again, Peter shifted so his cheek was pressed into the ground and he could look at the man. “Hands,” he rasped. 

The man clicked his tongue. “Apologies. Let me get that for you.”

He shifted into a crouch and came closer, looming over Peter. The boy felt cold hands brush over his wrists before the slight pressure of a lock being undone. Just as quickly, Peter was yanked into a sitting position, his back to the stranger’s chest. That, too, unnerved him. 

His arms were brought around in front of him, and he watched through blurry vision as the stranger clicked handcuffs around his wrists to restrain him again. 

 _Don't like this_ , he thought, _Where’s Mr. Stark?_

”Can you stand up now?” The man’s voice was pleasant and low, like a commercial narrator for therapy or something. There was no reason for Peter to not like it.

Peter felt nausea spin the room. He gagged. “No,” he groaned. “No, thank you.”

Suddenly, he was being shoved to the side, and the stranger was scrambling away. “Don’t you dare throw up on me, you little brat!” Now his voice was panicky and harsh. 

 _Rude_ , thought Peter. He managed to say, “Don’t feel good.”

The man kicked him in the side, but he couldn’t muster up the energy to care.

_I remember being at the lab . . . then going out for dinner with Mr. Stark . . . then what?_

“Jesus Christ,” muttered the man. Then, in a louder voice, he told Peter, “You’re being a real drag, kiddo.”

_Don’t call me that._

The man walked away. Now that Peter was paying attention, he could hear him going up stairs, then the heavy groan of what must have been a metal door opening. It fell shut with a soft boom.

 _This probably isn’t ideal_ , thought Peter. _Where’s Mr. Stark? He wouldn’t be very happy with this, I don’t think._

Flashes of the dinner he had shed light on his situation.

Mr. Stark, cocking an eyebrow over the menu he was scanning. Stealing fries off Peter’s plate, but giving him his onion rings after because he felt bad. Gawking, as he always did, when he saw Peter devour half the menu. Both of them trying to chug their milkshakes because they had to get going and immediately regretting it. Mr. Stark, laying a hundred dollar bill on the table and wrapping his arm around Peter’s shoulders.

His memories started flashing like a TV screen during a storm. 

He knew that they left the restaurant together. He remembered Mr. Stark crouching to rub his hands through a dog’s fur, cooing that _he_ was the best boy, _yes he was._  

“Goddamn,” said Peter. He got to his feet slowly, holding out his chained hands for balance. The walls tilted, but he kept it down. 

With his right eye out of order, he looked around to get his bearings. The room was pretty small, almost like it was built into the house as an afterthought. There were no decorations or furniture. In the far left corner, there was a staircase that went up into darkness he couldn’t see through. And directly behind him—those were manacles drilled into the wall. Those were what had been restraining him earlier.

 _Oh, okay. So I’ve been kidnapped. Mr. Stark is gonna kick my ass for this_. He thought about that for a second, then groaned out loud. _And Aunt May is gonna kick_ both _our asses!_

The floor seemed even colder when he sat down again, back to the wall. 

 _We left the restaurant, Mr. Stark pet the dog . . . what next?_ The throbbing in his head was not helping his train of thought. 

_More importantly, what now?_

The door at the top of the staircase opened again, and Peter quickly pretended to be asleep. The footsteps grew ever louder until they were right in front of him. 

“Little shit,” growled the man. 

Two seconds later, he was _drenched_ in ice cold water.

Yelping like a dog, Peter fell to his side and madly scrabbled away. Fingernails broke on the cement while trying to drag himself across the room.

A hand grabbed his ankle and slowly reeled him in, like he was a fish on a hook. The stranger’s other hand grabbed a fistful of Peter’s hair, not to yank it out, but to lift him up so he was on his knees again.

“That woke you up, didn’t it?” His voice was pleased.

Little whimpers of pain broke through Peter’s tightly clenched teeth. The cold water had brought every single ache and pain into greater proportions, made him unable to focus on anything but the disgusting feeling of his dirty, bloodied clothes sticking to him.

The man got Peter on his feet and half walked, half dragged him to the staircase. Every single step made tears prick the boy’s eyes. All the terror of being kidnapped, of not knowing what was going to happen or even what had _already_ happened was catching up to him all at once. He desperately tried to remember where Mr. Stark was, but came up with nothing. He tried to think of why his healing factors weren’t working, and again came up blank. 

He knew nothing but that he was alone.

* * *

Five minutes later found them in another empty room, save for one chair and one camera.

Peter wasn’t stupid enough to be clueless about this. If he was kidnapped, it was for one of three reasons:

Someone had found out about him being Spider-Man and wanted to use that as leverage,

Someone noticed how close Mr. Stark was to Peter and wanted him to suffer by watching him die,

Or he was to be held hostage. 

It couldn’t be the first option, because then it wouldn’t make sense for the camera to be there. The second option was a bit iffy, because there wasn’t any tarps or anything covering the ground or walls to catch blood. The third option was the most common. 

Except.

Except if there was a ransom, Mr. Stark would have either already paid it or tracked down the kidnapper to get rid of him, Peter was sure of it. And judging by how dry the blood on his hands was, it had been a good while since he was taken. 

Usually, he was rescued within the first hour of being kidnapped. 

(The fact that there was a _usual_ for kidnappings was a testament to how weird Peter’s life had gotten.)

If Mr. Stark hadn’t gotten Peter back by now, then there was a reason. Either he well and truly had no clue where he was, or he was hurt so badly that he couldn’t do anything to help him. 

His throat clogged when he had the realization that the blood on his hands might not belong to him. 

The kidnapped shoved him into the chair and quickly produced some rope to keep him in place. “All you have to do is sit there and look pretty, alright? Let me do the talking.”

Peter glared the best he could and asked, “Where’s Mr. Stark?”

”That’s not important,” answered the man. Peter dubbed him Mr. Crazy.

”It’s gonna be pretty important real soon, considering you’re using me as a hostage.”

Mr. Crazy paused in his fiddling with the camera stand to stare at Peter. “Smart kid. I see why he hangs around with you. Anyways, by the time I get this filmed and edited and in the mail, I’m sure he’ll be up and at ‘em. I didn’t hit him that hard. I mean, harder than I hit you, for sure, but not hard enough to _kill_ him! I’m not a psychopath.”

Debatable. 

“Oh, we’re doing this the old fashioned way?” Peter tried to distract him with talking.

”What do you mean by that?” Mr. Crazy looked through the lens and adjusted something on the side.

He shrugged the best he could. “I mean, there’s no fancy hacking your livestream into his Tower’s TV feed or whatever to show what’s happening. No sending ominous clues to lead him here so you can fight him. Nothing like that?”

”Nah.”

”That’s what I call old fashioned.”

Mr. Crazy told him to shut up and walked out of the room. Peter yelled after him to come back soon. 

So Mr. Stark wasn’t dead. That was good. It didn’t explain the blood on his hands entirely, though he could make an educated guess. 

His Spidey senses, for whatever reason, weren’t working. Dr. Banner had a theory for why his advanced senses were either completely out of business or firing on all pistons when he was injured. Thoughts weren’t coming all that easily to Peter at the moment, but the gist of it was that his advanced healing was either directing all his extra energy into healing the injury or dispersing it to be on the lookout and prevent any more. Apparently now it had chosen the former.

Mr. Crazy walked back in with a ski mask on and duct tape, chuckling. “Almost forgot!” He stopped in front of Peter and taped his mouth shut.

(To be honest, he was so occupied trying to think of how to get out of that situation that he barely noticed.)

”Like I said, let me do the talking, okay?” Mr. Crazy gave Peter a thumbs up and turned on the camera. He moved so that he was standing directly behind Peter’s chair with his hands on the boy’s shoulders like two bags of sand.

”Mr. Stark! If you’re receiving this tape, then I have to conclude that you must have made a full recovery. Congratulations! And if the person watching this isn’t Tony Stark . . . then either listen closely or get lost. Unfortunately, you might have noticed by now that a certain young intern is missing.” Mr. Crazy squeezed Peter’s shoulders. “Don’t you worry about Peter, here. I’m taking good care of him until we get things sorted out. He’s a fine young man—quick healer, too! Luckily for you, I have no intentions to hold onto sweet Peter. All you have to do is leave a bag full of untraceable, un-tampered-with hundred dollar bills that add up to about, oh, a million dollars? Yeah, that sounds right. Further instructions will be in the envelope.”

Mr. Crazy leaned Peter’s head. Like a cobra striking, his hands were around Peter’s neck, _squeezing_ and _squeezing_ all the air out of his fucking lungs. 

“I would really hate to take drastic measures if you don’t comply with my demands, Mr. Stark. I won’t be asking twice.”

Just as Peter’s lung were sobbing for air, Mr. Crazy let go. 

Sweet, sweet oxygen whistled down his throat as he reclaimed his stolen breath.

The kidnapper paused to rip the tape off of Peter’s mouth then moved behind the camera again—Peter saw the outline of a gun shifting in his waistband—and began to fiddle with it. 

_Fucking crazy ass money hungry psychotic trick ass bitch._

Maybe Mr. Stark would literally choke on his own spit if he heard Peter think like that, but he felt the situation called for it. Besides, he’d bet his left arm that Mr. Stark could make flowers shrivel with the storm he would cuss up upon getting the video Mr. Crazy planned to send. 

“One take should be fine.” Mr. Crazy peered over the top. “You did amazing, kiddo, couldn’t have asked more from you.”

_I need to get out of this chair. I need to get to a phone._

Peter saw a plan spread its wings in his mind’s eye.

“What d’you need the money for?”

Mr. Crazy began to fold up the tripod the camera had been on. “What does anyone need money for? I have stuff to buy and nothing to buy it with.”

”Stuff to buy?” Peter tried to open his right eye to no avail. “Like a friend? Maybe a life?” He gasped loudly. “Someone who loves you?” 

The man sniffed, his jaw set. “Not exactly.”

”Then _what?_ Condoms? Lube? Porn? Pocket pussy? Dildo? Butt plug? I’m dying over here!”

Mr. Crazy took off the ski mask and flared properly of Peter. “Shut up.”

”But why? You chose to kidnap me. You chose to tie me up! And I think we’re rather close now, shouldn’t you be telling me these things? It’s not safe to keep it all bottled up, you know.”

Mr. Stark always said Peter could talk his way out of anything.

”I mean, _seriously_. Is it daddy issues? Are you trying to hire an assassin? I’ve actually heard that it’s cheaper to just do it yourself.”

Whether that was ignoring them until they let him go or genuinely convincing them, he never said.

”Of course, if you’re looking to not get caught, then you should probably hire the assassin. But isn’t a million dollars a little steep?”

Happy always said Peter could talk an ear off. Could he talk a kidnapper off?

”Hey, who’s your assassin guy? I bet I can get you a way cheaper one. I heard of some that’ll kill for like, half a peanut butter sandwich. Unless they’re allergic to peanuts, I guess.”

May never complained of his rambling mouth. She was always ready to lend an ear. It was probably why Peter assumed everybody was as interested in his things as he was. 

“Are you allergic to anything? I used to be, but then I got bit—but then I grew out of it. Did you know you can grow out of allergies? Crazy, right? I didn’t know that!”

Mr. Crazy snapped. He turned, yanked the gun out of his pants and pointed it directly at Peter. “ _Shut—up!_ ” He roared. ”For God’s sake, shut up!”

Peter’s heart thudded in his chest. He was _so_ close. “Shut up? How am I supposed to shut up when there’s nothing else to do? I’m tied up!” 

His boots kicked up dust as he strode across the floor to start untying Peter, angrily muttering to himself. Mr. Crazy still held the gun in one hand. Up close, he could see red veins in the man’s eyes, making him look much more manic that he had previously. 

 _Just have to time this correctly,_ Peter told himself. _Any second now_. . . .

It was when the rope around his right wrist came off and he was working on the left one that Peter made his move—quick as lightning, he smacked Mr. Crazy’s ear with an open palm with all the strength he had 

(Tony had taught him that in training. It was a surefire way to disorientate an enemy.)

Mr. Crazy yelled and stumbled back. Peter lunges for the gun and pulled it out of his now weak grip. Mr. Crazy, realizing what had just happened, lunged forward with a curse and started to grapple with him for the weapon. 

Picture this: 

One fully grown, average looking man, desperately trying to steal a gun from a scrawny, skinny, bloodstained teen who was half dragging the chair he was tied to with him as he desperately tried to evade the fully grown man.

_Out of context, my life is like the beginning to a weird porno._

It was when Peter’s wrist slipped free and he could use it to attack the man that the gun went off. 

The noise scared Peter as much as it did the other man.

He watched with wide eyes as Mr. Crazy paused. And frowned. 

And pressed his hands to his stomach.

As if to pluck off the petals of the blood blooming there. 

Mr. Crazy shuffled back. “You shot me?” His voice bounced off the walls—both physical and mental ones. “You weren’t supposed to shoot me.”

_Oh, my god._

Blood stained the older man’s hands. He sunk to floor carefully, like he feared shattering. 

“No . . . no,” whispered Peter. “I didn’t mean to. I wasn’t trying to!” He watched, terrified and helpless as the man looked at him with accusing eyes. 

“You . . . you did this.” The man winced. Finally showing the pain. That wince turned into a sob that fell from his throat like a stone into water.

Peter shook his head rapidly, desperately. He stumbled forward and kneeled beside him, placing his hands over the other man’s. “I’m sorry,” he blubbered, “I didn’t mean to shoot you!”

The gun had been discarded. Thrown to the side.

 _He’s dying,_ Peter realized. _I’m going to die with this man in my arms. I’m going to be the last face he ever sees, hear the last words he’ll ever speak, feel the last breath leave him. I killed him._

* * *

_“_ _Stark speaking.”_

_”. . .”_

_”Who is this? How did you get my private number?”_

_”. . .”_

_”Is this—are you the one who took Peter? Is he there right now? Peter? Oh, you better start praying to Jesus himself, because the second I find you I’m going to—“_

_”Mr. Stark?”_

_”Peter! Shit, kid, you can’t scare me like that! Where are you? Are you hurt? Stay right there, we’re getting your location now. Are you okay?”_

_”Um. I think so. I—I shot him.”_

_”. . . Shot who, kiddo?”_

_”The guy. The one who took me. There was a gun, and I distracted him by talking and he came over to untie me and I just lunged for it and we wrestled and I didn’t mean to, Mr. Stark, it just went off! And now he’s dead!”_

_”Calm down, Peter, just breathe. I’m coming to get you. Tell me what happened, what did he do to you?”_

_”He didn’t want to hurt me! He just wanted money! He never wanted to kill me, he said—and I killed him!”_

_”I understand, buddy. But he did hurt you—he kidnapped you, remember? He wasn’t a good guy. He was a bad guy. Nobody’s gonna miss him for it.”_

_”You don’t know that.”_

_”Yes, I do.”_

_”He could have had a family, Mr. Stark. There could be someone waiting for him to come home—“_

_”No, there isn’t. I know this because bad guys, like him, don’t have families. They can’t care about people enough to have them care back. Bad guys don’t have families, kiddo, and he was a bad guy. You may not have done the best thing, but you still did a good thing.”_

_”I killed him!”_

_”And the world is all the better for it!”_

_”Mr. Stark, I can’t go back to the Tower with you.”_

_”Why not? Are you hurt? Is there another guy there? Talk to me, Pete.”_

_”I’d get your suit dirty. I’m covered in his blood.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m actually rather proud of this chapter so holla
> 
> If you wanna follow me on tumblr then my username is the same one as it is here
> 
> COMMENT OR SUBSCRIBE OR SOMETHING TELL ME HOW YOUR DAY WENT DRINK YOUR WATER THANKS ILY


	19. Exhaustion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 19 is exhausted, hope you all enjoy!
> 
> Just BTW, since I want to get this finished before the New Year, the rest of these are probably going to just be drabbles/really short unless I really get into one. Sorry!! 
> 
> HOWEVER—I will STILL be writing Irondad and Spiderson :) I even have a 5+1 Christmas fic for them in the works—keep an eye out for that. 
> 
> If you want updates whenever I upload a new story, subscribe to my account!

CTony was tired. He was—he was exhausted. He was utterly drained.

Rain spit at the windows of his tower. He had locked himself in his workshop for the last three days and told FRIDAY to mute all messages. 

This wasn’t new. 

Every couple of weeks, he sort of . . . shut down. Like a system reboot. 

He needed something, but he wasn’t sure what. He was simultaneously full and empty. 

And he wasn’t sad, per se. He wasn’t happy, for sure, but he wasn’t _sad_. 

He was just. Tired. 

Nothing could move him. He had been lying on the floor, staring at the ceiling for the last seven hours. 

(Rotation was important, so he didn’t get too cramped.)

Everything . . . every noise just filtered out. 

Every thought filtered out. He could only put together the barest of thoughts, when there was a need to. 

_What’s wrong with me?_

The rain went tap, tap, tap.

_Why do I do this?_

Tap tap tap. 

His workshop was empty. Knowing that his bots would never leave him alone, he sent them out, as he always did.

(It also meant that every couple weeks anyone with level ten access could wander into Tony’s personal floors and see several decades old robots wandering around.)

Tap tap tap.

Just . . . so tired. He couldn’t feel anything. But he wanted to. But he wasn’t sure what it was he wanted to feel anyways. 

It was boredom and sadness and exhaustion and anger all at once. 

Like—like when you’re looking at a picture on your computer or phone or whatever and you make the picture bigger and bigger until it’s so big you can’t even see anything besides a flat blank screen of whatever part you ended up seeing.

That’s how he felt. Like all his emotions were all so blown up he could only feel a portion of them. Like they were spilling out of his body, swelling him up like an over-ripe fruit. Whenever he looked at himself he expected to look obese, enormous, ridiculously engorged on his own feelings.

 _I can’t do this_ , he thought.

_I can’t do this._

”FRIDAY, call Pepper.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follow me on tumblr: jessicagoddamnjones 
> 
> Subscribe to my account to get updates whenever I post something! :)
> 
> Comment, or don’t, I’m not your mother. I hope you all enjoyed!!


	20. Concussion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Woot woot I actually did research for this chapter!
> 
> I hope you guys enjoy!
> 
> Subscribe to my account to get updates whenever I post

_“—ter? Peter?”_

Why was his mouth so dry?

” _How you feeling, buddy?”_

Was that Mr. Stark? Why was his mentor underwater?

_”Can you open your eyes for me?”_

_I’d sure like to, Mr. Stark, but the problem there is that I’m pretty sure my eyes are gone._

”No.”

Someone snorted. “He can’t be _that_ hurt, if he’s still being a smartass.”

Three other people chimed, “Language!”

”I hate you guys.”

The water was slowly clearing up now. Other sounds, like breathing and the shuffling of feet, were audible.

“Hey, look, I think he’s waking up.”

”Peter?”

”S’my name, don’t wear it out.” With the strength of a thousand waterfalls, he opened his eyes. 

The upside-down, blurry face of Tony Stark came into focus above him. White teeth blinded Peter when Mr. Stark smiled. “Glad to see you back in the land of the living, sport.”

”We should get Bruce to check him out. Where is he?” That was definitely Wanda Maximoff speaking. Peter liked Wanda; she would sometimes help him prank people with her abilities. She said it helped to associate them with something other than death. 

“Last I checked, passed out in a dumpster with no clothes on,” answered Sam. “May he always be recognized as the manliest of us all.”

”I don’t see _you_ taking out an alien with one hand while saving a bus full of people with the other,” said Natasha. 

He heard someone smack someone else’s arm. “That’s because I’m in the air stopping the aliens from even reaching the ground, _Nat_.”

There was a quiet thud, then he yelped in pain. Peter heard the familiar sound of Clint, Tony, and Natasha all laughing at Sam.

“You should know better by now than to challenge Nat,” said Steve. He wasn’t laughing outright, but he did sound amused. 

Peter smiled and managed to say, “ _Nice_.”

That turned the attention back to him.

Tony carded his fingers through Peter’s hair, the way he knew he liked it. He realized he had his head resting on Tony’s lap. He must have retracted the Iron Man armor, because he felt jeans instead of metal. “How you feeling, kiddo?”

”Like shit.”

”Normally I’d tell you not to say shit, but you have a boo-boo so I’ll let it slide.” Tony smiled fondly.

Peter’s lips twitched up. “Can I say fuck, too?”

” _No!_ ” Chorused everyone.

His head throbbed at the noise. “Damn, okay. What happened?”

Tony brushed Peter’s hair out of his face. “You took a pretty hard fall. One of the aliens pushed you off a building.”

He considered that for a moment, then nodded the best he good. “Sounds right. We won though, right?”

Sam’s grinning face appeared above Tony’s. “Of course we did, we’re the Avengers.”

”If we didn’t win, you’d be dead.” Natasha showed her face. It was like watching a comedy, when people kept on popping out of places logically impossible to pop out of. 

Groaning, Peter tried to sit up. 

Tony’s arms wrapped around his shoulders, allowing Peter to lean against his chest. “Take it easy. You could have a concussion.”

The scent of gasoline and burnt rubber grated on Peter’s senses. “Nag, nag, nag.” Standing around the pair was Clint, Steve, Natasha, Sam, and Wanda. “I did good though, right?”

The engineer squeezed Peter’s shoulders, then began rubbing his arms, as if to reassure himself that he was still there. “You always do. Come on, let’s get you up.” Tony hooked his hands under Peter’s armpits and hauled him up. 

Peter groaned, head banging pots and pans together and screaming at him to stop. “Why, though? Can’t I just . . . chill?” 

Holding out a steadying hand, Steve said, “Nope. If you do have a concussion, then the best thing we can do is get you to medical.”

”Didn’t you jump out of a quinjet once?”

Clint laughed at Steve deadpan expression. “Nat, come on. I think I got shot and I want you to put the bullet on a necklace.”

The redhead bobbed her head for a second, the linked her arm with Clint’s and walked off with her friend. 

Sam put his hands on his hips and squinted up at the sky. “You guys are all good here, right?”

Once Tony and Steve nodded, he gave Peter a thumbs up and launched himself into the air.

Wanda smiled softly and shuffled closer. Red flickers of light still curled around her fingers. “Are you feeling alright?” 

Peter leaned heavily against Tony and nodded. “Fine. Kind of tired. Hey, where’s Vision?”

”He’s helping transport some injured citizens to the hospital. I should probably go help,” she answered. Wanda backed up a few steps and ran her eyes over Peter one last time. The palms of her hands turned crimson red, and she, too, rose into the sky. 

That just left Tony, Peter, and Steve. 

The latter turned to Tony and said, “You should get that mask back on him. The news will be coming around soon, don’t want it to get out that New York’s friendliest spider is a high school kid. I’ll go hold them off for a bit. See you later, Parker.” He gave the teen a firm nod and walked off, back stiff as it always was after a battle.

”Then there were two,” sighed Tony. “You need help walking?”

Peter shook his head. “Where’s my mask? I can probably just swing to the—“

”Absolutely not!” Tony guided him down the street, pressing the red mask into his hands. “There’s no way in hell that you’re going to be in the air again for at least a day. Longer, maybe, depending on what’s up with that noggin of yours.” He rapped his knuckles on Peter’s head, making him winced and half-heartedly push his arm away. 

Peter slipped the mask on and allowed Tony to all but carry him down the sidewalk. 

Two seconds later, the stench of rotten eggs choked him, and he yanked off the mask to sprint over to an alleyway and retch against the side of a dumpster.

“Oh—shit,” muttered Tony. He followed Peter, pressing his hands reassuringly into his back and rubbing little circles. “That’s definitely a concussion, kiddo. We really gotta get Bruce to check you out.”

As he said that, a shuffling noise came from within the dumpster itself. A second later, Bruce’s fluffy head popped up over the side. 

“Did someone say something?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think by commenting or whatever. What do y’all think of the rest of this being drabbles? I would update faster, but the chapters would be shorter. 
> 
> HOPE YOU ENJOYED!


	21. Harsh Climate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 21 is harsh climate..... y’all I’m sorry but I really just can’t write straight whump for too long before bringing in the fluff THATS MY BAD

“Peter, your lips are blue.” Mr. Stark looked both vaguely amazed and horrified while staring at the younger boy. 

“I’ve been chugging the Kool-Aid. Like all the cool kids do, Mr. Stark,” he answered. His teeth clattered together so much, he was barely comprehensible. 

Mr. Stark moved closer and cupped Peter’s cheeks. “Kiddo, don’t spiders not thermoregulate? Shouldn’t you be hibernating right now?”

”Can’t. I have homework.” He grinned toothily and shuffled closer to Mr. Stark’s body heat. “How are you still warm right now?”

He shrugged. “I put a heater in my coat. Didn’t I do that with yours?”

Peter’s jaw dropped. “You put a heater in your coat? You can _do_ that? Why haven’t you done it for me yet?”

”Okay, that’s a no.” The snow was falling so heavily that Tony could barely see Peter’s face, even with how close he was standing. “How long have you had this coat?”

Peter’s coat, which was a dark, dirty red, was practically falling apart at the seams. In some places, there were rips in the fabric where gray stuffing leaked out. Tony wondered how he had taken so long to notice the state it was in—but then again, the snowstorm had pretty much come out of nowhere. Peter, the psychopath, wanted to drag Tony out into it so they could “experience it in 3D”.

God, the things he did for him. 

Peter shrugged. “About two or three years. Since before I got bit, I think.” He ignored Tony’s patented Dad Look and rubbed his hands together. “I don’t mind. It keeps me from staying out too long anyways, and proper coats are all so expensive now! It’s like, two hundred bucks just to stay alive, you know? I didn’t ask to be born!”

Tony scoffed and unzipped his coat, ignoring the cold wall of air that rushed at his chest. Even though he was wearing a thinner jacket underneath, it was cold as hell outside. 

“Mr. Stark? What are y—“ before he could finish speaking, Peter got yanked into Tony’s arms and the coat was being zipped up around him. With his face smashed against Tony’s arc reactor, he mumbled, “What’re you doing?”

Tony began vigorously rubbing Peter’s back and arms. “Trying to get the blood pumping again. Can’t have you dying on me now, Pete. Here, get your arms around my waist. We’re going full apocalyptic survivors here.”

With some wiggling around, he managed to wrap his arms around Tony. It was actually kind of comfortable. He couldn’t move much, because of the coat, so it was like a standing cuddle. He liked cuddles. Plus, he could really feel the heating system working away. He felt like he had his back to a fireplace. 

“Step on my feet,” instructed Tony. 

“What?”

“Step on my feet,” he repeated. He gave Peter an extra squeeze. “Come on, you hardly weigh anything, and I can walk us back inside.” 

His brows furrowed. “I can still walk, Mr. Stark.”

”It’d just be awkward for all of us, kiddo. Step on my feet.”

”We’re already sharing a coat, isn’t that awkward enough?”

”It’s not awkward if it’s for survival. Haven’t you watched TV?” Tony kicked Peter’s ankles lightly. “Don’t make me ground you.”

”You can’t ground me,” said Peter. Nevertheless, he gingerly stepped onto Tony’s snow boats. “You don’t have the authority.”

He began walking them back towards the Tower. ”Oh really? Your Aunt May gave me permission to ground you after that whole hot-dog-drug-stand debacle. Checkmate.”

”I stand by my actions. Besides, I had it under wraps, right?”

Tony chuckled and rested his chin on top of Peter’s hooded head. “Whatever helps you sleep at night, kiddo. Hey, you want hot chocolate? I’m feeling hot chocolate.”

Peter pressed his nose into Tony’s collarbone and breathed in the soothing smell on his cologne. “With marshmallows in it?”

”Oh, yeah. The really big ones. That you choke on.”

”I hope I choke to death on a marshmallow, Mr. Stark.”

”Is it weird that I hope you choke to death on a marshmallow, too? I mean, you’ve made it pretty clear that you aren’t going to live long enough to die of old age. At this point, I think death by marshmallow is the least painful way you could go.”

”Awww,” cooed Peter. “That’s sweet. Will you speak at my funeral?”

The man pinched the boy in the ribs sharply. “If you die before me, I will drag you out of hell by your ear and deposit you right into May’s arms.”

Peter pinched him back, right on the hip. “Why d’you think I’m going to hell?”

”All children who disobey their parents go to hell. You’ll lead the pack there, buddy.” Tony reached the back door and opened it with one hand, keeping the other firmly wrapped around Peter. 

The fact that Tony indirectly called himself Peter’s parent warmed him more than the jacket.

”If _you_ die before _me_ , I’ll write Satan a strongly worded letter and then drag you out of hell by _your_ ear,” countered Peter. 

“Wait,” protested Tony, “why am _I_ going to hell?”

“All parents who hope their kids choke to death on a marshmallow go to hell. Sorry, I don’t make the rules.”

Tony’s chest shook with laughter under Peter’s cheek. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follow me on tumblr, if you wish: jessicagoddamnjones 
> 
> Subscribe to my account here to get updates when I post things!
> 
> I HOPE YOU ENJOYED TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK LOVE YOU FOR READING YAY


	22. Friendly Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 22 is friendly fire ........ yikes  
> Hope you enjoy this!

“Tony, I think you’d better sit this one out,” warned Sam. “Looks like this guy can control robots or whatever.”

”You should know by now that this isn’t a robot suit, Wilson. I’ll be fine,” said Tony.

”No, I’m serious. I think this dude could control your suit, it’s some weird shit down here,” protested Sam.

”Watch your mouth, there’s children on the line,” Natasha snapped. Shots of gunfire echoes through the comms on her line, but she sounded perfectly unaffected. 

Peter scoffed. “I’m sixteen, Ms. Romanoff.”

”I know. I was talking about Tony.”

The protests of the man was lost in the static that briefly overtook the communication system. Needless to say, he was not happy about Natasha’s classification.

Sam spoke once more. “I’m serious, Stark, it’s not a good idea. Back me up here, Steve.”

The voice of Steve Rogers, who was usually silent for the most part except to give orders or scold them, traveled through the ears of whoever was hooked into the comm system.

(Wanda, Bruce, Clint and Thor had all lost their ear pieces ages ago. The rest of the team didn’t worry so much about that, as those three were perhaps the strongest pick of them all. Maybe not Clint, but . . . he was a big boy, he could handle himself.)

”I think he’s right, Tony, sorry. Not a good idea.”

Tony frowned, slowing down on his blasters a bit so he could survey the battlefield he was flying over. Three interconnected buildings, all full of filthy HYDRA agents, were slowly being cleaned out by the team. There were several high towers branching off, which Peter, Sam and Tony had been told to clear. “Since when have I _A_ , ever listened to what you say or _B_ , cared if something was a good idea or not?”

”I’ll go with him!” Peter volunteered. “I can be his backup.”

He fought down a smile. It was nice to know that even when the world was going to shit, Peter could be counted upon to be by his side. Some things never change. “Yeah, Peter’ll back me up. Hang on kid, get to the top of the tower, I’ll come by and pick you up.”

”Hey, weren’t you same one who was telling Steve that Peter shouldn’t be allowed to come on the mission it was quote, ‘ _Too dangerous for him_ ’ and you didn’t trust any of us to quote, ‘ _Make sure he doesn’t pull any stupid shit like Rogers used to back in the day_ ’?” Asked a smug Nat.

”Mr. Stark says that about every mission,” said an unbothered Peter. “I’ve got the speech memorized. Ohh, I see you, Mr. Stark.”

Tony adjusted his speed a bit and veered right to fly over Peter. “Yeah, Nat, stop trying to throw us off. You ready, Pete?”

”Uh-huh!”

As soon as Tony was close enough overhead, Peter attached a web to the belly of his suit and then swiftly climbed up—looking horrifyingly like a real spider, with the way his legs and arms moved—to settle himself on Tony’s back. They both let out cheers of victory at the smooth motion in which they did it. 

(Truth be told, it took them hours to get it right in practice.)

Steve and Sam were chuckling good-naturedly at their antics, but Natasha merely said in a deadpan voice, “You guys are two halves of a whole idiot. Tony, aren’t you supposed to be discouraging this kind of behavior?”

He chuckled as he caught the wind and followed it to the half-ruined building Sam had told him to steer clear of. “You ever tried stopping Peter when he wants to do something? Best bet is to just make sure he’s got someone watching his back.”

”And vice versa,” added Peter. 

“And if we’re two halves of a whole idiot, then what do you call you and Clint?”

Nat scoffed. “He’s the left brain, I’m the right brain, obviously.”

Peter adjusted himself to crouch close on Tony’s back, fingers curled around his shoulders. “Why does that make perfect sense to me?”

”Hey, guys?” Steve cut in. “Sorry to interrupt your gab session, but we’re literally in the middle of a battle. Could you hold it off until the ice cream and nail polish?”

”How so toxically masculine of you, Mr. Rogers,” said Tony. “Have I taught you nothing about the freedoms of male self expression in the twenty-first century?”

Sam spoke to that, “Men have always been allowed to express themselves, Stark. People only got killed if they weren’t straight and white about it.”

Tony nodded his head absentmindedly. “Well, lucky for you fellas, the only straight I am’s a straight up _bisexual!_ ” He drew out the last word into a whoop. 

They flew into the building through an empty windowsill to the sound of Peter’s laughter.

Inside, it was like a forgotten war zone abandoned by all the soldiers. Dust and rubble carpeted the floors, papers floated in the air as if of their own accord, and smack-dab in the middle of it all, there stood the master of it all, Dr. Robert Russey himself, the HYDRA scientist they were looking for. In his hands, he held a small device that was almost like a phone, where it not for the bright, flashing red and green lights coming from it, along with the high pitched squeal. On his head, in place of a crown, there was what looked like a metal headband with loose wires hanging out and _screws_ attaching it directly to his head. He had literally screwed the contraption into his skull.

With the way Dr. Russey was standing, right on top of an unharmed desk, eyes fixated on the window that Tony and Peter flew through . . . it was almost like he was waiting for them. 

A chill fell down Tony’s spine. 

“ _Sir, it may not be safe to proceed_ ,” said FRIDAY cautiously. ” _I reccomend letting one of the others take care of him._ ”

Tony dismissed her and landed a healthy distance away from Dr. Russey. “That’s a nice flower crown you got there,” he said, “did you make it yourself?”

Peter crept off of Tony’s back like a forgotten memory and stayed silent. He knew the drill. Keeping close to the floor like a real spider, he began to make his way over to the walls to watch from above. 

“You can’t stop me, Tony,” declared the estranged doctor. “Nobody can stop the turn of the world.”

“ _Boss, my systems are showing signs of weakness. Would you like me to call in Captain Rogers for you?_ ” 

“No, FRIDAY, don’t call in anyone. Me and Pete got this handled,” he said to his AI. To the doctor, he said, “Nobody can control the turn of the world, either. What are you tryna do?”

Peter watched the scene unfold from the ceiling, ready to fall in whenever Mr. Stark gave the order. “Kid, you got eyes on Stark? We lost him on the comms. You all good in there?” Sam’s voice was barely audible in Peter’s ear. Static cut most of his words in half. 

After carefully examining the pair, Peter figured bringing anyone else in wasn’t a good idea. “Yeah, I see him. This guy really isn’t messing around, sir. Don’t worry, I’ve got his back. I think if anyone else shows up the doctor will lose it.”

”Be safe. It’s dangerous.” Steve’s voice sounded like he was yelling from across a football field. 

It all went silent under that, so Peter figured that his comms must have finally given out under the pressure of whatever the doctor was doing. 

“ _Peter, this situation doesn’t seem safe to me. I don’t think Mr. Stark should be talking to Dr. Russey. Would you like me to call in another member? I can still reach Vision_ ,” suggested Karen. 

”Chill out, we got this covered,” Peter told her.

” _You could get hurt. It goes against my protocol to let you get hurt._ ”

”Yeah, well, it goes against Mr. Stark’s protocol too, so don’t worry. He won’t let me get hurt!” 

God, what was with everyone doubting them today? He and Mr. Stark had done a million missions together with nary a scratch to show for it, and now they were all concerned? 

“I’m trying to save us!” The doctor said, running thin and shaking hands through his hand. Several more clumps fell out with the motion. 

“Save us from what?” Tony must have sensed how sensitive the man was, because he toned down the snark. His voice was marginally softer, though that might have been to distract the doctor as he moved microscopically closer. 

The doctor let out a shrill, short laugh. “From the evil! The evil _we_ created. . . .”

”Who’s we?” Tony asked, watching carefully the way the doctor moved, trying to find his weaknesses. FRIDAY had stopped trying to get him to stand down, thank god. He wasn’t appreciating the doubt today. “HYDRA?”

“No—not completely. You. Me. _Us_. The geniuses of the world—the inventors! We create monsters and call them guardian angels!” The doctor started fumbling with the phone looking device, mumbling under his breath. 

He almost protested, but then remembered Ultron and decided, _Alright, he’s got a point_. “And have you created a monster, Dr. Russey?”

Dr. Russey stopped his fiddled and fixed Tony with a focused stare. “Maybe. Maybe. Maybe the monster created me. Maybe I’m just righting the wrongs of humanity.” He paused here and delicately stepped off of the desk, sinking ankle deep into ashes and rubble. “Maybe I’m starting here.”

Tony didn’t have time to ask what he meant by that before his suit was moving without his permission, missiles powering up in his palms and turning to point them at—at Peter. 

“FRIDAY?” Tony demanded. “What’s going on? Stop this—what did he do to my suit?” His voice grew steadily more panicked as the missiles grew more and more ready to launch.

As he did nothing but sit in there and watch, Peter scuttled across the ceiling, shooting a web at Dr. Russey to keep him from escaping—good boy—and a web at Tony’s mask to temporarily blind him.

But it didn’t matter if Tony was blinded. His suit could see for him. And it had already targeted Peter.

Blind and helpless, he had no choice but to listen as the missiles fired and exploded on _something_. “Peter?” He yelled. “Peter, tell me you’re alright! Where are you? Peter, you gotta get out of here, I can’t control the suit anymore!”

Peter barely evaded the missiles. The blast from them sent him flying across the room— _just like a bird_ —and against a stone wall. He cracked his head pretty good. The familiar Black Spots of Doom made their appearance. With the way they danced in front of his eyes, it was like they were welcoming him back.

_Oh, hi Peter, we were thinking that you were getting too comfortable. Remember the last time life fucked you over? Wasn’t that fun? Let’s do that again!_

This was one visit he’d really like to skip. 

When his vision cleared, he saw the Iron Man suit turning in a slow circle. His hearing wasn’t too good, but he could definitely make out Mr. Stark yelling inside the suit. Probably telling him to get out of the building while he still good. 

From what Peter knew of the suit and it’s tracking abilities, it would search heat signatures until it found one that matched his. Since there were only two possible options in the room, that meant that that search would be over fairly quickly. “Karen, start up the heater,” he hissed, “get my body temp up.”

But there was no reply. 

“Karen? You with me?” 

The suit was slowly turning towards where Peter was crouched in the rubble, still nursing the back of his head. Any second now, he would be caught.

And still, Karen didn’t answer. 

“Shit—shit—shit—“ Peter pushed aside the worrying welt on the back of his head and scrambled up the wall he had been thrown against. “Mr. Stark? What do I do?”

Bullets nipped at Peter’s heels like eager dogs, waiting for their turn to rip into his flesh and tear him apart. 

(Just like Uncle Ben.)

He climbed as fast as possible, arms burning, taking as making sudden turns and twists as possible in order to make himself harder to follow. Peter wasn’t an idiot. He knew he would be confronted with a choice soon. 

He could either run, and leave Mr. Stark alone at the mercy of Dr. Russey, or he could stay. And possibly be killed by Mr. Stark. Who would then probably be killed by Dr. Russey. 

Well, Peter was a loyal son if ever there was one. 

During one of the suit’s brief pauses to recalibrate, Peter dropped to the floor and spirnted over to where he had trapped Dr. Russey. “Turn it off!” He yelled as he ran. “ _Turn it off!_ ”

Dr. Russey merely sat there and laughed, laughed, laughed at Peter’s pleading. He didn’t laugh so much when Peter ripped right through the webbing holding him hostage and used him as a human shield. 

“Stop it!” Demanded the doctor. “Put me down before you get me killed! _I still have work to doooooo!_ ” His last word was drawn into a howl, attracting the suit’s attention. 

Now that he was closer, Peter could hear Mr. Stark inside the suit.

” _Peter, for the love of god, please I’m begging you, get out of here! Don’t be a fucking hero, you’re gonna get killed!_ Go!”

”I’m not leaving, Mr. Stark,” he yelled over Dr. Russey’s shoulder. “I’m not going to abandon you!”

” _I’M GOING TO KILL YOU, PETER! LEAVE!_ ”

They had trained for . . . _thousands_ of situations. Everything from flesh eating aliens to house fires to hurricanes, they had always been prepared. 

But they had _never_ prepared for this. Never for Mr. Stark turning against Peter. Never for Peter to be on his own. Sure, they had sparred against each other in training, but that was as close as they ever got to fighting each other. 

This was different.

This was Tony, being forced to listen to—to _orchestrate_ —his kid’s death. He didn’t even get to see his face. 

This was Tony, being helpless and terrified that when the suit came off, he would have nothing but a dead teenager to show for it. 

This was Tony fearing not for his life, but for Peter’s. 

After the suit locked onto Peter again, it all went so fast he barely had time to think. He tossed aside Dr. Russey, webbed him down again, and took off  

Run. Duck. Roll. Jump. Web. Throw a piece of rubble. Run. Jump. Crawl. Duck. 

Just like in the movies.

Except usually, in the movies, the evil robot didn’t have a nearly hysteric man trapped on the inside begging for the protagonist to get out of there. 

“Not without you!” Peter jumped over a line of bullets and took temporary refuge behind an overturned desk. 

“Peter, leave! Please! Don’t make me kill you! Don’t make me go through that!”

The sound of his crying mentor nearly tore Peter to shreds. He wanted so desperately to listen, to run and let someone else take over, but if he left then who would watch Dr. Russey?

 _I need to get to the cell phone thingy_ , Peter thought with sudden, dazzling clarity. _If I destroy the cell phone thingy, I might be able to destroy the program controlling Mr. Stark_.

When he peeked over the edge of the desk, his heart sunk. Apparently, the doctor had thought of that, because the Iron Man suit was stationed guard right in front of him. The only way to get to the cell phone thingy would be to go through Mr. Stark. 

 _Oh, god, think_. 

Peter looked at the ceiling. There were a lot of helpful pipes and railings creating a net of refuges for him. One of the piles had been shot open and was letting out white steam. He wondered if it would set off the fire alarms stationed smack dab in the middle of the ceiling. 

A plan started forming. 

He took one last look at the suit—as still as a mountain in front of the struggling Dr. Russey, blue lights-for-eyes focused directly on the desk Peter was hiding behind.

It was now or never. 

Peter shot a web up to the roof and nimbly climbed up it, avoiding bullets left and right. They echoed around the room, throwing off his hearing. Truth was, he wanted to start crying, but he knew that if he allowed himself to start, then he would never finish. 

When he was at the ceiling, he was too far away to hear Mr. Stark yelling, but he sure could imagine it. 

“Get out of here, kid! Don’t be an idiot! You’re gonna get killed!”

Using the pipes and railings as covers and handholds, Peter made his merry way over to the fire alarm.

Which he immediately busted open with his fist. 

Wailing sirens mixed with falling water mixed with gunshots as the sprinklers went off, dousing everything. 

Peter knew the suit. He knew the weak spots and the strong spots. He knew what threw it off and what strengthened it. 

Falling rain threw it off. 

Unless Mr. Stark specifically muted all outside noises, it sounded like pennies on a tin roof times a thousand. That would throw off its tracking, giving Peter the opportunity to jump down upon its shoulders, hook his fingers under the crease of the helmet where it was weakest, and rip off the head of the suit while simultaneously disengaging it.

Which was exactly what he did. 

Mr. Stark’s gasping, blood-shot face greeted Peter. “You fucking idiot,” he said. Though since he was beaming, it kind of took away from the insult. “You goddamn asshole.”

”I don’t think you’re supposed to use that kind of language around me, Mr. Stark. It’s against the rules.”

”Fuck the rules. You’re stupid, you know that? I told you to get out, why didn’t you?”

Peter laughed. “Are you kidding me? After all that you’ve done for me, you thought I was gonna take off just because you happened to be actively trying to murder me? Nah. Parker’s aren’t quitters.”

Mr. Stark shook his head. “You’re one of the dumbest kids I know.”

”I’m the only kid you know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HOPE YOU ENJOYED TELL ME IF YOU DID
> 
> I’m personally not a fan of this chapter. My phone tweaked and ended up deleting the second half of it like two times. 
> 
> Follow me on tumblr: jessicagoddamnjones 
> 
> Subscribe to my account if you want updates whenever I post :)


	23. Self Sacrifice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Self sacrifice is day 23, hope you all enjoy!

Literally go to any movie that has ever had Tony fucking Stark in it and watch it lmao. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed! Let me know if you did, and don’t forget to subscribe to my account to get updates whenever I post :)


	24. Drowning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 24 is drowning.......yay!  
> Hope you enjoy

He lived in New York, okay? How was he supposed to learn how to swim in _New York?_ Jump into a sewer?

And his fucking suit wasn’t exactly swimwear, either. It was great in dry weather, but once Peter hit the water it felt like a blanket sticking to him.

God, why did he have to pick today of all days to forget to repack his parachute?

(To be fair, the temptation to jump off the hijacked quinjet instead of just riding on Mr. Stark’s shoulder’s was too great.)

No, that wasn’t fair. The parachute would slow his fall, but it would still tangle around his legs and prevent him from swimming even more than the paralyzing drugs in his system  

Luckily, Karen was waterproof. He knew this because as he was sinking to the bottom of the ocean, her helpful voice was chirping in his ear, “ _You have one minute left before you start dying, Peter. Would you like me to contact Mr. Stark?_ ”

 _Uh, I’d sure like to, but I can’t really talk right now, Karen_. 

Karen was waterproof. The suit was not. Water filled his nose like an unwanted smell, invaded his mouth and lungs like a poison, rotten and cold and _killing him_. 

(It’s killing him. Oh, god, it’s killing him, he’s going to die down there, at the bottom of the ocean in the middle of nowhere and someday; somehow they’ll pull out his corpse and he won’t be Peter Parker anymore. He’ll just be a bloated, purple, rotting, fish-bitten shark snack in a skin tight suit. Who would tell Aunt May? Who would tell Ned?)

He watched the sunlight dancing on the water above him. 

(Who would tell Mr. Stark?)

Can somebody cry underwater? If so, Peter was definitely doing so. Maybe the ocean was so salty because of the tears of everyone who’s ever drowned in it.

He imagined, for some reason, the Salem Witch Trials. Fire was the most well known way of killing them, but the men drowned them here and there as well. Their line of thinking was that if she drowned, she wasn’t a witch, but if she didn’t drown, then she was. 

They weren’t very subtle about their hatred for women. 

Peter imagined all the innocent women—midwifes and mothers, sisters and daughters—who had been murdered. They had died in the sea. They _were_ the sea. 

There was an old myth that the women who were killed by drowning turned into mermaids. Mermaids and sirens. 

He imagined them now. 

Watching him drown.

Maybe, after he was dead, they would cradle his corpse in their scaly arms and weep over another lost soul. 

(He understood that they couldn’t interfere. He didn’t blame them.)

Maybe, after he was dead, they would push his hair out of his face the way Aunt May and Mr. Stark would to see his eyes. 

Maybe, after he was dead, the mermaids would bury him in the sand and mark his grave with seashells and scales. 

He wouldn’t mind that. 

It was peaceful. After a while, the sunlight on waves looked like the ocean itself was waving goodbye to him. 

_Bye Peter. Bye Peter._

He couldn’t feel his lungs anymore. He couldn’t feel the cold, either. Now he was just . . . floating. 

It felt nice. 

Peter closed his eyes and dreamt of the mermaids. He dreamt they spoke to him in quiet whispers and held them in their stony arms. He dreamt that they tapped on his cheek like a child taps a glass cage at a zoo. 

He dreamt that they carried him down to the bottom of the ocean and laid him to rest there.

_“Peter? Are you awake?”_

No.

_”Can you open your eyes for me?”_

No.

_”You have some visitors. Don’t you wanna see them?”_

No, no, and no. 

Someone else began speaking quietly. “May I have some time alone with him?” Now that sounded like a mermaid. Mystical and soft.

A soft assent, then shuffling footsteps.

“Peter? Can you hear me?”

Unfortunately.

“It’s May, sweetie. Um, apparently, you’re supposed to be able to hear us. Don’t really know if I believe that. You, uh, you were in an accident. An alter ego accident. Tony Stark saved you. Apparently Karen called him. You were almost dead.” She took a shuddering breath. “But you weren’t. Thanks to Tony and Bruce, you got stabilized and now . . . you’re in the hospital, I guess. God, I know I should’ve signed you up for those swimming lessons.”

She talked for a few more minutes, mainly about trivial things like how her day was going and what her coworkers were gossiping about. 

Peter didn’t hear much of it. He was listening to the mermaids. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I HOPE YALL LIKED THIS THANKS FOR READING LET ME KNOW IF YOU ENJOYED
> 
> Follow me on tumblr: jessicagoddamnjones


	25. Restraints

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 25 is restraints, hope y’all enjoy! :)

“So . . . come here often?”

”Tony, you asshole, we’re literally locked in a basement, can you stay being serious for two seconds?”

”Hey, no cussing in front of Peter! He’s still a verbal virgin.”

”I heard that, and I do not appreciate it.”

Steve allowed his head to fall back against the wall he was leaning against. “Out of all the people I could’ve gotten stuck with, why did it it have to be you two?”

Over the corner where Tony was, he scoffed. “You’re lucky to be stuck with us. We’re a goddamn joy to be around.”

”Yeah,” Peter agreed, “we’re a goddamn joy!”

”Don’t say goddamn,” said Tony. 

“You said it first.”

”I’m an adult.”

”You use a sippy cup, Mr. Stark.”

”It’s so I don’t spill it in the lab! Nat gave it to me—it’s actually pretty smart, and I don’t see you thinking of any other ingenious way to have a drink without the risk of it ruining your projects, so shut it.”

”Use a water bottle,” said Steve in a monotone voice. “Just . . . use a water bottle.”

They both paused to look at him. “Yeah, that makes sense,” Peter whispered. 

The unfortunate trio lapsed into silence before Tony announced, “Fear not, I’m pretty sure I can get these cuffs unlocked. Got myself in quite a few predicaments in college, you see, so I became something of an . . . expert!” On the last word, he triumphantly held up his hands, free of the cuffs. 

Peter beamed. “Cool! How did you do that?”

”Oh,” Tony mused, going over to start unlocking him, “it was an unfortunate situation involving the headmaster’s Mercedes—the car, not the horse—, a car wash, and some paint.”

At the teen’s blank look, Tony added, “You meant how did I get out of the cuffs, right?”

”Yeah.”

Steve began praying under his breath. “Dear God, please don’t let these idiots get me killed, Amen.”

”I can still hear you, Mr. Rogers,” said Peter. “And we aren’t idiots! Out of the three of us, who’s the one in handcuffs?” He mimicked Tony’s motion and held up his freed hands. 

Steve showcased his empty wrists. “I broke through mine like, half an hour ago. I was waiting to see how long it would be until you two noticed. Did you forget you have super strength, Peter?”

The boy made a quiet ‘ _oh_ ’. 

“So you were just gonna let us suffer, huh?” Asked Tony in an indignant voice. 

Shrugging, Steve answered, “You’re a smart guy, Stark. I knew you would figure something out eventually. Besides, it was pretty peaceful until you started talking.”

Before anyone could carry on the conversation, the speakers mounted in the corners of the room cane to life and Natasha’s voice came through them. “ _Good job, boys. You took thirty minutes longer than the other groups. You’re somehow in sixth place and there’s only five teams in the running. Keep going. And Tony? It really is a sippy cup. I gave it to you as a joke—I didn’t think you’d actually use it!_ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case y’all are wondering, the rest are probably going to be about as short as these. I have a lot of shit on my plate, writing wise, so I’m really rushing. 
> 
> Thanks for reading, let me know what you thought, comment, whatever. 
> 
> Subscribe to my account if you want updates whenever I publish things! (There are definitely going to be more irondad and spiderson fics in the near future, HINT HINT)


	26. Broken Ribs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the positive feedback, it means the world to me!
> 
> Day 26 is broken ribs. Enjoy :)

The bruises on Peter’s rib cage looked like a flower.

Actually, he had seen a picture of a woman in her bra who was showcasing her tattoo—it was an enormous work of art that spanned almost the entire left side of her torso. On it was a bouquet of black, purple and blue flowers, completely swallowing the pale skin it was inked on. It was badass. 

And now Peter’s bruises looked almost exactly like that. 

Cool. 

He took a deep breath and gagged when he felt the shattered remains of two of his ribs shift in his chest. Being careful would be key to getting through the next ten minutes.

Peter worried at his lip and pulled back on a shirt he had stolen from Mr. Stark to sleep in, covering up his injury. “FRIDAY,” he asked, “where’s Mr. Stark?”

” _Mr. Stark is currently in the main kitchen. Would you like me to tell him you’re coming?_ ”

He shook his head absentmindedly, one hand splayed over his ribs as if he could hold them in place. “Nah. I’ll just go down there.”

The sound of his broken bones rubbing against each other drove him insane, but he made his way down the wall and down a small flight of stairs into the kitchen. Every breath hurt—but that was a familiar feeling. Being Spider-Man didn’t come without its risks. 

“Peter? What are you doing up?” As soon as Mr. Stark saw him, he was getting up for rom the stool and walking over. “You aren’t supposed to be walking around.”

”Sorry, Mr. Stark. I was getting antsy, though, and I’m pretty sure I may have rebroken my ribs in my sleep, but I’m pretty sure they’ll be fine in day or two, I just need some of that pain killer stuff that Dr. Banner made, then I think I’ll pass out for a while.” Peter shrugged helplessly. Nervously. Eyes trapped on the shiny floor and bare feet shifting nonstop.

Mr. Stark rubbed his face and let out a long, tired sigh. It was obvious that he was planning to go to bed for once, and the guilt only spread in Peter’s chest. “Okay. Okay, buddy, come on. I think he left some of it in my room, just in case.” He walked past Peter and only stopped to gingerly wrap an arm around his shoulders to begin steering him away. 

“I’m really sorry, Mr. Stark, I didn’t mean to interrupt anything,” Peter babbled. “I just thought—I mean, you said to come get you if I felt my ribs acting up, and I didn’t want you to get mad at me again, and I guess I thought you would still be burning the midnight oil or something, because you like, never sleep, and—“

”Pretty sure all that talking can’t be good on your ribs.” His thumb rubbed soothingly over Peter’s shoulder. 

“It’s not. But I’ve pretty much just repressed the pain. It only hurts when I start thinking about it.”

They went up the stairs and bypassed Peter’s room to get to Mr. Stark’s. “Sit there,” he ordered, pointing to a squishy chair Peter loved. 

Mr. Stark waded through the clutter of his room to get to his desk. There were piles and piles of thick white binders filled with confidential information and covered in coffee stains, at least three screwdrivers sticking out of the wood from where they had been stabbed into it, and, inexplicably, an Easy Bake Oven. He shoved things aside and rummaged through the mess to turn around, victorious, with a small pill bottle in hand. “Ta-da!”

Peter winced his way through a smile. “Thanks. Sorry to bother you, Mr. Stark.”

”Not a problem, buddy, you’re under my roof, so therefore under my care. It’s bad form to allow guests to wander around with broken ribs in the middle of the night.” He snagged a water bottle off the corner of the desk and passed it to Peter. “Take two of these. Anymore and he said you might overdose.”

”Fingers crossed, Mr. Stark,” Peter replied. He obediently took two pills and gulped it down with the water. 

He shook his head in disgust. “My god, I’ll never understand Gen Z humor. Come on, up you get.”

Taking the offered hand, Peter hauled himself out of the chair. He began to walk towards the door, but was stopped by Mr. Stark refusing to let go of his hand. 

“Uh, Mr. Stark?”

The older man looked just as confused as Peter felt. “What do you think you’re doing, kid?”

He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Going to bed. What’re _you_ doing?”

“Getting you to bed.” Mr. Stark raised an eyebrow. “What, you thought I was just going to let you go to sleep in the guest room? Come on, those mattresses are like bricks.”

The mattress in Peter’s room at the Tower felt like lying on a thousand angel feathers while getting a back massage. “It feels fine to me, Mr. Stark. Besides, I don’t wanna impose or anything, it’s _your_ room.”

Mr. Stark bobbed his head. “Yeah, and I’m choosing to share my room with you. Go, get in bed. I’ll take your room.”

Heat spread across his cheeks like a wildfire. “No! No, you can’t do that, you just said they felt like bricks, just let me get—“

He tugged on Peter’s hand and dragged him over to the side of the bed, where he ignored the boy’s dwindling protests and drew back the blankets. 

(His bed did look _really_ comfortable.)

Tony gently pushed Peter into the bed and covered him again. “Just get some sleep. Let FRIDAY know if you need anything, she’ll wake me up and I’ll get it for you.”

Peter mumbled the rest of his disagreements into Mr. Stark’s pillow. 

And if Pepper ended crawling into bed besides Peter at two in the morning because nobody had remembered to tell her of the change, then proceeded to scream and wake up the whole floor when she woke up, then honestly, who really cared? He had broken ribs, for christ’s sake. 


	27. “I can’t walk.”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 27 is “I can’t walk.”  
> I hope y’all enjoy :)

Peter carefully leaned over his suit-clad leg and prodded at his ankle. Needles of pain shot up his leg. He pulled his lips back in a wince and looked around himself helplessly.

There was nobody around who could help him.

Usually, being called on a mission meant he was being watched by at least one team member at all times. He would _beg_ for them to lay off, but they always cited the same excuse: Tony said to watch him.

Oh, if only Mr. Stark could see him now.

(Actually, he was low key glad Mr. Stark couldn’t see him. If he did, he would definitely be yelling at him for being stupid.)

Peter knew that his advanced healing would be kicking in any second now, but _shit_. Ankle injuries _hurt_. It was like getting hit by a Razor scooter times a thousand. 

Christ, where was everybody?

The mission had been simple: get in, grab the chemicals, get out. 

But somehow during all of that the comms got shut down, so there were no means of communication. Then Peter had gotten separated from Mr. Stark. 

He didn’t even know how it happened!

One second, he was behind him, blasting HYDRA agents willynilly, then Peter turned around and—

He was gone. 

That split second of distraction had given the agent Peter was fighting the opportunity to break his ankle with the baton he wielded. Peter fell, but managed to web him to a tree. 

The agent was still sleeping. 

Tears, stupid, childish tears, filled his eyes. It was silly, and immature, and he certainly couldn’t picture Iron Man or Captain America bursting into tears during a mission, but he was also _alone_ , and he was _hurt_ , and Mr. Stark was gone, and he couldn’t talk to anyone. 

And he was scared. 

Taking a shaky breath, Peter wiped at his eyes and gritted his teeth. He poked at his ankle again, experimentally, and was happy to report that the pain was already numbing. 

However, upon attempting to stand up, he immediately toppled over and knocked his head on a rock. 

“ _Fuck_ ,” he hissed, feeling around for any blood on his head. “Goddammitshitfuckassdick.”

”You kiss your mother with that mouth?”

He screamed—a manly scream, though—and twisted around as much he could without disrupting his ankle. Behind was Clint Barton, blood trickling from a cut in his eyebrow, both eyes blackened, and with a bleeding lip. Somehow, he still managed to grin at Peter.

After catching his breath, Peter asked, “You know my mom’s dead, right?”

Clint rolled his eyes and crouched next to Peter. “Figure of speech. Everybody’s mother is dead, I think it’s an initiation ritual.”

”I don’t think Mr. Wilson’s mother is dead,” he said. 

Shrugging, Clint replied, “Sam’s the most normal out of all of us, to be honest. Definitely the most functional.”

”Where is everyone?”

”Someone managed to send out a wave of something or other, knocked out the lines. I think the battle is over, but I can’t find anyone else. I think they sent in people in the air to lift them up and drop them somewhere random, so we’re all scattered throughout the forest. It’s like a treasure hunt!” Clint grinned like a child on Christmas.

Peter raised an eyebrow. “You’re kidding me.”

”No, really, I saw one of them snag Thor,” Clint insisted. “Not sure what happened to the guy, but the god was dropped over yonder.” He gestured over his shoulder without taking his eyes off Peter. 

“Great. That explains what happened to Mr. Stark, then. Hey, where’s your bow?”

”Ran out of arrows, so I threw it at an agent and ran. Come on, we’re gonna go track down the others.” He held out a hand to help Peter up.

Peter looked at his legs shamefully. “I can’t,” he said quietly. 

“Can’t? What, are you waiting for a chariot? Come on, kid, Tony’ll have my ass if I leave you here.” Clint wiggled his outstretched fingers. 

“I can’t walk, Mr. Barton. My ankle is healing too slow. I’ll be stuck here for another twenty minutes, at least.” Peter batted away Clint’s hands and shrugged nonchalantly. He scooted back so he could lean against a tree. 

Clint sighed deeply and heavily and tipped his head back to stare at the gray sky. Thinking. Calculating. Analyzing. “Alright. Alright, here’s what we’ll do.” He got close to Peter in a crouch and, fast as lightning, scooped him up in his arms bridal style. 

He let out a squawk of protest, but instinctively threw his arms around the older man’s neck. “What are you doing?” He asked, face bright red. 

“Carrying you, what’s it look like I’m doing? Hey, since we’re here, what happened to your mask?”

”I took it off. Should be somewhere over there.”

Clint looked around and spotted it, a pool of red against the snow. He squatted to pick it up and continued walking with Peter. “Would you stop screaming in my ear? I do this with my kids all the time.”

”One, I’m not your kid, and two, your kids aren’t sixteen year olds!” Peter shriveled in humiliation. Sure, he had been carried by Mr. Stark plenty of times, but that was _different_. This was _Clint Barton_ , who probably had better things to do than haul around a stupid teenager who got himself injured.  

“Eh,” Clint shrugged. “You’re kind of like the whole team’s collective child. Why do you think Nat threw that knife at you?”

”To test my reflexes?”

”Yup, because she wants you to be able to defend yourself. Besides, you may as well be Tony’s kid, he _calls_ you his kid all the time, at least, and that kind of makes you our kid by default. Ever notice how there’s always an extra donut for you in the mornings?”

”Not really, no.”

”Well there is. You know who makes sure someone else doesn’t eat it?”

”Who?”

”Thor. Thor saves you a donut in the morning, buddy. If a literal alien god from space can see that you’re the team’s kid, then surely you can too.”

They walked in silence for a few more minutes before Peter very quietly asked, “Does Mr. Stark really call me his kid?”

Clint hid a fond smile. “All the time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Clint deserves more appreciation and face time and that’s that on THAT. 
> 
> Let me know if you enjoyed, tell me what you thought, I HOPE y’all enjoyed! This was actually pretty fun to write Bc I’m literally in theatre arts class as I type this and since there’s a play today we don’t have to do anything besides sit and watch them all run around >:)
> 
> LOVE YOU THANKS FOR READING!!


	28. Severe Illness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 28 is severe illness..... I have no regrets 
> 
> HOPE YALL ENJOY LMK IF YOU DID

“Did you know that strokes are the second most highest cause of death from a disease in the US?”

”Peter. . . .”

”They’re also the leading cause of disabilities.”

”Peter.”

“140,000 people die each year in the United States from strokes.”

“Peter, that’s enough.” 

He looked over to see Steve Rogers looking sternly at him. He would blush, but he couldn’t feel much of anything, much embarrassment. “What? I’m just stating the facts.” 

Sam Wilson brushed his hand over Peter’s shoulder, then retracted it like his sleeve was on fire. “Maybe now’s not the best time.” He not so subtly jerked his head over to where Pepper was staring at him with tears in her eyes.

She was sitting closest to Mr. Stark, her hand curled into his limp one. Tears tattooed their path with mascara and eyeliner down her cheeks.

“Sorry, Ms. Potts,” he muttered, eyes dropping to the hospital floor.

Everyone was in the room. The second they got the text from Pepper in the Avenger’s group chat saying that Mr. Stark had suffered a stroke, they all dropped what they were doing to gather at the compound’s hospital. Peter had just gotten up and ran right out of biology class without a word to his teacher. 

Even Happy was there, stationed in a corner with his eyes on the door like the stroke might be a real life person who could walk in to finish what it started any minute now. 

Mr. Stark looked so . . . dead. Like the only thing keeping him alive was the people around him refusing to _believe_ he was dead. 

Natasha, bless her heart, cleared her throat and changed the subject. “Do the doctors know when he might wake up?”

Pepper pulled her gaze off Peter. “Uh, no, they aren’t sure. Could be in the next five minutes, could be a week. It’s hard to tell.”

Clint made a sympathetic noise in his throat. He was on the other side of Nat, too far away to comfort her, but he made do with occasionally murmuring some comforting words.

Even Thor was there, but he seemed a bit lost on what to do. He mainly stayed silent, observing the room. Peter couldn’t find it in himself to lose his shit about his second favorite Avenger being in the room. 

The air around them seemed almost tangible, like cotton candy. They all lapsed into silence.

Slowly, after the course of several hours, the team trickled in and out. Eventually, it was just Pepper and Peter. Somewhere along the line, Aunt May had shown up. Pepper explained everything to her, and she placed a kiss on Peter’s forehead whispering kind nothings into his ear, then left. 

“You don’t have to stay, you know,” said Happy. His eyes were fixed on the door still. “He won’t be angry at you if you leave for a few hours. Get some rest.”

He pulled his sleeves down over his hands. “I’m fine here. I don’t . . . I don’t wanna miss anything.”

”I’m sure you won’t. He’ll be angry at you if you miss school to stay.”

”He’s always angry at me, it’s what makes our relationship so charming.”

Happy sighed and stood up, cracking his back. “I’m going to get some coffee. Would you like some?” 

He shook his head, offering a small smile of thanks. Pepper copied his actions. 

Happy left the room. 

He waited until he heard his footsteps disappear completely before lunging forward and grabbing Mr. Stark’s wrist. Pepper stood up, closing and locking the door. 

“Listen, Mr. Stark, we’ve only got like five minutes until he gets back, is that enough time?”

Tony’s eyes popped open, and a grin speared his lips. “Uh, duh. Thought he was never gonna leave. Pepper, is the car ready?”

”In the garage. Here, put this on,” she reached under the bed and pulled out a duffle bag, shoving it into his chest. “Make it snappy. Nat can only keep the cameras off for so long.”

”Are you sure this is going to work, Mr. Stark?” Peter asked, his face a mask of anxiety. 

Tony patted his shoulder reassuringly. “Positive. When have my plans ever not worked?”

”Don’t you think this is a little extreme?” Asked Pepper. 

He paused, went deathly still. “Never. I _will_ get Steve to admit I’m better than him and I _will_ fake my death to do it.”

”I can’t believe I married you,” said Pepper. 

“Three minutes,” said Peter. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There won’t be a part two. This was originally gonna be really angsty but I guess I’m literally incapable of doing THAT so here you go :)
> 
> Hope you enjoyed! Let me know if you did! Thanks for reading!


	29. Seizure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 29 is *checks notes* seizure. 
> 
> aren’t you guys glad now that all of these are gonna be drabbles? Imagine if you had to read 1k+ words of just.....suffering. 
> 
> Don’t get me wrong, you’ll DEFINITELY get 1k+ words of suffering from me in the future, but not for the rest of these prompts. Not yet. 
> 
> HOPE YOU GUYS ENJOY!!!

Peter found out while at home. He was in his room studying, heard his phone go off and, desperate for an excuse to look away, checked it. 

It was from Pepper, which was an oddity all in itself, as he only had her number for emergencies, like when he wanted to surprise Mr. Stark or he saw a cute dog on the street. 

The text itself made Peter snap the pencil he was holding in half. 

_Tony had a seizure. Happy’s on his way to pick you up._

“No,” he breathed. “ _No_.”

The rest of the night happened in flashes, to Peter. Like snapshots of a movie. 

Flash one: May’s face, frozen in confusion as he mutely walks past without bothering to put on shoes. 

Flash two: A bird silhouetted in artificial orange light as it dove under a street lamp. 

Flash three: His own hand on the handle of a car, pulling on the handle, pushing his whole body against the car like he could physically fall through the door and into the seat. 

Flash four: Happy’s eyes, creased with worry and exhaustion, locking with Peter’s in the rear view mirror, lips parted to say something Peter didn’t hear. 

Flash five: the gates of the compound gliding open, the dim lights of the building beyond like a siren’s song. 

And underneath it all, the soundtrack of Peter’s fucking life: Not again, please not again, let him live, let him live, let him live. 

Then it was like he blinked, and he was suddenly standing in the medbay of the compound, Pepper in front of him, hands cradling his cheeks. “Peter?” She asked. “Are you alright? Can you hear me?”

Behind him, he heard Happy. “He’s been like this the entire ride. I don’t think he heard a thing I said.”

 _Oh, so he had been talking_. 

“Tony?” He asked. “Tony?”

God bless Pepper Potts, because she knew exactly what Peter was asking with just that one name. 

“He’s alive,” she said immediately. “He’s fine. Asleep, mostly. The doctor gave him a bunch of meds. He’s fine.”

Peter reached up to loosely wrap his fingers around Pepper’s wrists, not to pull her hands off, but just to know that she was still there. “How did it happen?”

Tears left a shine on her eyes. “Uh, he got sick of the twelve step program. He said he could just go cold turkey, so he threw out all his booze and stopped, out of nowhere. Apparently, if someone has been dependent on alcohol for too long and stops out of nowhere, it can cause a seizure. But he’s alright.”

Peter nodded absentmindedly. “So—it was just him wanting to stop drinking? That’s all it was?”

She nodded. Out of nowhere, she grabbed his shoulders and yanked him into her chest, wrapping her slender arms around him. 

The funny thing about hugs is that you don’t realize how comforting it is until you want one and there’s either no one willing or no one available to give you one. 

Now that he was actually getting one, he was hit by how much he needed it. 

Inhaling deeply, Peter pressed his face into her shoulder and hugged her as tightly as he dared. Tears made their escape into the frabric of her blouse, and soon enough, sobs shook his whole body. “I—I was so _scared_ , Pepper,” he admitted, “I thought he would—he would die.”

”I know, I know,” she whispered, running her hands through his hair the way Mr. Stark knew how. “But he’s alive, Peter, he’s perfectly fine. He’ll be thrilled to know you care so much, to be honest.”

His laughter mixed with his sobs. “I can’t lose him,” he cried, “I can’t—can’t lose anyone else, I can’t do it.”

Her hands moved from his hair to his back, rubbing soothing patterns to match the words she whispered in his ear. 

Slowly, he started to calm down. He stopped crying, at least. When he was coherent enough to speak, he mumbled it into Pepper’s shoulder. 

“I can’t hear you, buddy.”

He sighed and pulled away slightly, eyes directed at the floor. “I don’t have any shoes on.”

It took five seconds for Pepper to start laughing. 

It was another three until Peter joined. 

And it was a straight ten until they heard Tony say from behind them, “Why the hell aren’t you wearing any shoes?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not,,,,my best,,,,
> 
> Anyways let me know if and what you enjoyed by commented, we’re SO CLOSE to the end I’m so happy, so let me know if there’s anything you wanna see in the next two chapters bc tbh I’m running out of ideas for these prompts. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!!


	30. Caregiver

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> YALL IM SCREAMING IM SO CLOSE OKOK
> 
> hope you all enjoy! :)

 

_Tony Stark is not: father figure material._

”Mr. Stark? I think I broke my suit . . .” Peter held up the red and blue suit sheepishly, already blushing. 

He sighed and placed the pencil he was holding in between his teeth, gesturing for Peter to hand it over. He prodded at the knot of wiring Peter had managed to manipulate into malfunctioning. “What’d you do?” He mumbled around the pencil.

Peter shuffled over, leaning over Tony’s shoulder to watch what he was doing. “I was laying down the wires, like you said, but I think the tension in one of the blue ones snapped, and it kind of just . . .” He gestured vaguely at the lining of the suit. 

“ _Let me fix it, Mr. Stark, I need to learn how to do it by myself, my name is Peter Parker and I never listen!_ ” Tony mocked him in a high voice under his breath. 

Peter whined and pinched Tony’s shoulder. He rested his chin on it immediately afterwards, to show no hard feelings. Tony gently nudged Peter’s cheek with his own temple to show that he was joking, then proceeded to show him how to fix the suit. 

_Tony Stark is not: a good role model._

“Hey, hey, hey, what’re you doing?” Tony raised an eyebrow at Peter incredulously. 

Peter raised an eyebrow right back. “Working? What’re _you_ doing?”

Tony walked over and plucked the papers out of the boy’s hands. “Stopping you from working, it seems. Kid, it’s two in the morning, you should be in bed.”

”I once saw you eat coffee beans out of the bag with a spoon because you were so sleep deprived you didn’t remember how to make coffee yourself.” Peter lunged for the papers, but was easily fended off by Tony. 

“And I swore you to secrecy about that, Peter.” Tony held the papers high above his head and frowned down at him. “You can finish this tomorrow.”

Peter made a sound of protest low in his throat. “But I’m on a roll! I really think I can improve the suit’s heat tracking in high climate areas by up to thirty percent with this!”

Tony placed his hand over Peter’s mouth. “Don’t wanna hear it, bub. Get to bed before I have to go all responsible authority figure on you.”

Peter glared, but stood up anyways. “Didn’t you fly a nuke into space once?”

”You’re not me, Spider-Guy. _You_ are the younger, cuter, much more _responsible_ version of me who goes to bed on time and doesn’t argue with his superior.”

”I’d hardly call you my superior.”

”Between the two of us, which one can successfully grow facial hair?”

”Between the two of us, which one can walk on ceilings?”

_Tony Stark is not: responsible._

When Peter slouched his way into the kitchen at seven in the morning, Tony was already setting out two plates at the table. “Morning, scholar. You ready for school?”

He said something that didn’t even sound like English and sat down. Immediately afterwords, he twisted in his seat to rest his cheek on the back of it and watch Tony work. “What’re you doing?”

”Making you breakfast, what does it look like I’m doing?” Tony paused with his spatula in hand, frowning at the layout. “Why, did I overdo it with the eggs? To be fair, you do eat like a beast.”

Peter’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “You’re making me breakfast?”

”Did I stutter?”

” _Why?_ ”

”It’s a school day! Breakfast is the most important day of the week, and you’re in your prime years right now. You need to be well fed in order to succeed.”

Peter’s mouth started watering as the full scent of all the food finally hit him. “How long have you been up?”

Tony _hummed_ and _herred_ and flipped the bacon in the pan before saying in a high voice, “Since about five, why?”

”Because you just said breakfast is the most important day of the week.”

”Oh. Well, just ignore me, I’m a silly old man, already wasting away. . . .” He sighed wistfully, staring into the distance. 

“Mr. Stark,” groaned Peter. He had heard this whole routine before. 

“I mean, who would want to hang out with a sad hermit like me, anyways?”

”Mr. _Stark_.”

“It’s not like I saved the universe or anything . . . I guess the new world has no use for us old-timers, us _backbones_ of the _country_.”

”Mr. Stark, the bacon is burning.”

”Huh? Oh, shit!” Tony jumped out of his place leaning against the counter and scurried over to the stove, quickly picking up the pan and shaking it, as if he could shake off the burnt edges. 

_Tony Stark is not: selfless._

”Hey, buddy, you doing okay?” Tony spoke in the softest voice Peter had ever heard, poking his head in through the door. 

He groaned, shoving his face into a pillow. “Don’t feel good,” he said. “Cold, then hot, then cold again.”

He heard the man hum in sympathy. “Do you need anything? I can bring you some soup, or some Tylenol, or something.”

”I’d burn through the Tylenol in three minutes. Don’t think I can eat. Hey, don’t you have meetings and stuff today? It’s the middle of the afternoon, what are you still doing here?” Peter pulled his head out of the pillow to peer suspiciously at Tony with glassy, red-rimmed eyes. 

Tony flushed and stepped inside, closing the door behind him. “I canceled all my meetings.”

”Huh?”

”Well, when FRIDAY said that you weren’t feeling well, I figured you’d want to have someone around to like, take care of you, and stuff. I’m not sure how it works when you’re at your Aunt May’s house, but when I was your age, whenever I got sick the family butler would always take care of me. I don’t remember much, but he offered to make soup a lot.” Tony, encouraged by Peter’s silence, came closer. He gingerly sat on the edge of the bed, hand coming up to rub Peter’s ankle through the blanket. 

He smiled despite the snake in his stomach. “Aww, you have a heart!” Peter gently nudged Tony’s thigh with his foot. 

Tony grimaced. “Repeat that disgusting slander again and you’ll be hearing from my lawyers.”

Peter wheezed out a laugh. “Does the offer for soup still stand?”

Leaping to his feet, Tony bobbed his head happily. “Of course! May would have my head if she knew I wasn’t taking care of you. Just, stay right here, okay? I’ll be right back.” 

Before Peter could reply, Tony was rushing out of the room. 

_Tony Stark is not: brave._

“Mr. Stark? Uh, I think I might need a little backup, here.” Peter’s hesitant voice shot straight into Tony’s heart. He sounded like he was afraid of asking for help. 

Tony blasted an alien and turned, like he would be able to see the boy. “I’m on it. Where are you, Pete?”

”Behind the prison wing,” the boy answered. Tony could hear the sounds of webs shooting and aliens growling from his side of the comms.

Tony tore off from the ground, flying over the chemical wing to where he knew the prisoners had been kept. “I’m on my way. Watch your back, these things are sneaky.”

There was an intake of breath sharp as a knife, then a groan of pain, then rustling in the comms, before it all went silent. 

“Peter? _Peter?_ Talk to me, kiddo, tell me what’s going on!” Tony put more energy into his boosters, already scanning the edge of the building to try and find the clump of aliens Peter had been fighting. 

All he saw was a pulsating mass of slick black bodies crawling over each other trying to get the the treasure. 

Without thinking, without hesitating, without even _breathing,_ Tony dove straight down into the hoard, lasers firing up, suit scanning the land and trying to find Peter. 

There—a brief flash of red, so small he might’ve missed it. Tony shot in the direction, barreling past aliens until he could see Peter’s body. 

Peter’s limp, unmoving body. 

Peter’s limp, unmoving body that was about to be chomped in half by a giant alien with eight rows of teeth. 

Tony must have blacked out for a moment, because the next thing he knew he was covering Peter’s body with his own, elbows braces on either side of his head, gritting his teeth as he felt hundreds dig into his shoulder and part of his torso. 

He blacked out again. The next time he opened his eyes, he was in a hospital bed with Peter curled up on his chest and bandages covering almost the entire right side of his body. 

_Tony Stark is: a very loving father._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not my best but idc bc I’m almost done!!!
> 
> Tell me what you want to see in the last chapter. 
> 
> THANKS FOR READING, HOPE YOU ENJOYED, LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THOUGHT, LOVE YOU!!


	31. Showdown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Final chapter is showdown .... I had a lot of fun writing this. 
> 
> I wanna dedicate this to everyone who’s been regularly reading and commenting the entire way through, since the beginning: you know who you are, and I see you, and I love you. 
> 
> I hope y’all enjoy!

Peter clutched the gun in his shaking hands tightly, barely daring to breath. Sweat painted a mural under his combat gear, unfamiliar and chunky compared to the lightness and mobility of his Spider suit. 

The leafs on the trees around him whispered their siren song, drawing him in deeper and deeper. 

Into the forest. 

To shoot Tony Stark. 

His progress was slow, unsteady. Every crack and snap he heard made him pause, drop, look around, aim. 

He had already taken out Clint Barton. After that first shot, the rest were easy. 

Out went Sam Wilson. Then Vision, quickly followed by Wanda. He took out Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes in one go, with a grenade. 

He still saw their stunned faces on the inside of his eyelids every time he blinked. 

The biggest challenge was Natasha Romanoff, but once he got her weapons away, it was a breeze to take her out. Actually, Peter suspected that she _let_ him shoot her. That she just wanted it to be over with, no matter the means.

He would forever respect her for that.

Thor and Bruce were both taken care of by someone else. He heard the gun go off, then the god’s roar of anger, then another gunshot. It all went silent after that. 

Now, it was just Mr. Stark and Peter. 

The Iron Man and the Spider-Man, both without their suits. 

They had all entered the arena with the same uniforms, the same weapons, and the same warning: _Last one alive is the winner_. 

 _It’s kill or be killed_ , he reminded himself. _Do this for May. Do this for Ned. Do this to stay alive._

Would he be able to do it? If he came face to face with his mentor, his substitute father, his idol, could Peter look him in his eyes and shoot him?

His head whispered _yes_. Yes, he could. But his heart stayed silent. 

Peter scrubbed off the drying liquid that he didn’t want to think about off his face with his forearm, keeping one hand on his gun, always. 

The babble of a river drew him through a patch of tightly growing trees. He was thirsty. Peter had been in the forest for almost three hours. His muscles ached from staying so tense the whole time. 

After checking to make sure the coast was clear, Peter kneeled by the stream and cupped his hands in the water, greedily dipping his head to drink it—then immediately spit it out.

The water tasted disgusting, like rotten eggs and moldy milk and everything nasty in life. He gagged, attempting to scrape the taste off his tongue with his finger tips. 

The message was clear. 

_Nobody gets to drink until it’s over._

Newly determined, Peter grabbed his gun again and set off into the woods.

He knew that Mr. Stark preferred to be high up, but without his suit, he had no way to get there. He couldn’t climb a tree. Where would he go?

Peter racked his brains, thinking and calculating. 

What does one do if one has no means of defending themselves?

The answer came to him like a mirage in the desert: you build a trap. 

But in order to trap Peter, Mr. Stark would have to know where he was. Could he be following him?

Peter froze and whirled around, searching the trees to try and find something, _anything_ , that could help him locate his mentor. There was nothing. Just the branches and the plants and the thick shrubbery. 

 _Maybe Mr. Stark expects me to find him_ , Peter thought. _Maybe he left a trail leading directly into the trap._

With this new idea at he forefront of his mind, Peter kept his eyes peeled for anything out of the ordinary. It was fifteen minutes before he found it; a single footstep in the dirt. There was only one person it could belong to. 

Beyond the footstep was a broken branch. After that, disrupted bushes. Peter had seccessfully found the trail. 

But could he finish it?

The farther into the forest he went, the more the beast in his belly roared at him to turn back, to run out, to surrender. 

He didn’t want to shoot anyone. He especially didn’t want to shoot _Tony_. Tony was the same guy who taught Peter how to repair Karen in the Spider suit; the same guy who once confessed that he was thinking of making Peter the heir to Stark Industries during a late night work brainstorming session; the same guy who loved to card his fingers through Peter’s hair and gently work out all the knots. 

Could Peter ruin all those precious, sacred memories for his own life?

Was it selfish?

Chills went down Peter’s spine—though it  just as easily could have been sweat—when he saw the clues stop. Right on the edge of a clearing with large rocks covering the path. 

Somehow, deep in his gut, Peter knew. He knew that this was the end. He had made. There were no more excuses, no more time to think.

He took a deep breath and stepped into the clearing. 

For a moment, nothing happened. 

Then, from behind a large boulder, out stepped Mr. Stark. 

It was odd seeing him out of the Iron Man suit. Odd seeing him holding a gun, with a sash of grenades across his chest. Odd to see him painted in that incriminating liquid. 

Guess he knew who took out Banner and Thor. 

Tony smiled a grim smile. “Knew you would find me. You’re the smartest one out of any of them.”

Peter shook his head slowly, dread weighing his heart down. “You shouldn’t have led me here, Mr. Stark. You know what I have to do.”

”And you know what I have to do,” said Tony. “The question is, who’s got the guts?”

They paused for a brief moment in time, locking eyes. For that brief moment, the world stopped spinning, the water stopped running, and their hearts stopped beating. 

Then they each raised their guns and aimed at each other. 

Neither fired. 

“You sure you wanna do this, Pete?” Tony asked in a soft voice. “You wanna ruin everything you got? You kill me, you won’t be able to live with it, you know this. You’ll be reminded of it at every possibility.”

Peter shrugged with all the nonchalantness he didn’t feel. “Better you than me, right? How do you think Pepper will look at you, knowing what you’ve done?”

”Pepper knows that I do what I do for her. She’ll be proud of me for having the guts.”

They circled each other, somehow both the vulture and the corpse at the same time. “Maybe she’ll think you a killer,” suggested Peter. 

“I can risk that.”

”You brought this upon yourself, Tony,” Peter warned. His voice hitched up an octave. All the blood seemed to be draining out of his head. “You taught me this. You taught me that when it comes down to it, sometimes you have to make decisions you can’t live with. That’s the only way you _can_ live.”

Tony saw what Peter was doing a split second before Peter even did it—but he was still too slow. 

Peter pulled the trigger. 

 _Splat_. 

“Aw, come on!” Tony threw down his gun and raised his hands in surrender. “That’s not fair!”

A burst of laughter broke Peter’s facade; he joined Tony in throwing his weapons to the ground and pointed. “I won!”

Tony dipped his fingers into the blue liquid the paintball had left behind and attempted to wipe it on Peter’s cheek. “This is the third time I’ve lost paintball, how is this even happening?”

Hoots and cheers sooned filled the clearing as the rest of the team, all splattered with their own paint, filled the clearing. Thor had green paint all in his hair, while Bruce was covered in yellow. 

“Damn, Tony, killed by your own protégé, how sad is that?” Sam teased as he sauntered over. He flung an arm around Peter’s shoulders, only to rub a handful of pink paintballs into his hair. 

He felt the paint drip down the back of his uniform, but he couldn’t find himself to care. “I won!” He hugged Sam on instinct—the famous Happy Peter Parker protocol insisted he hug whoever was closest—and grinned into his shoulder. “I finally won!”

Sam patted Peter on the back before gently pushing him away, into the group. 

Clint and Nat were laughing their heads off by a very sullen looking Tony. “You know,” teased Nat, “I can understand Clint taking you out the first time we played, and I can somewhat understand Bruce taking you out the second time, but Peter?” She laughed again, throwing her arm around Clint. “Tony, maybe you just suck at paintball!”

“I can’t believe you would turn on your own mentor,” said Wanda with a goofy grin. Her hair had silver paint in it, along with half her face. “How cold.”

”Congratulations on your win,” Vision added, brushing a hand across Peter’s shoulder briefly before stepping back. He was still getting the hang of platonic human intimacy. 

“First time I’ve ever won!” He told them, even though they all already knew this. “May’s gonna laugh her ass off when she hears I took out _you_ , Mr. Stark.” The student jabbed playfully at Tony’s chest. 

Tony grabbed his wrist and reeled him in, hugging him tightly from behind and grumbling, but that only made Peter happier. Tony rested his chin on top of Peter’s head. “Can’t believe my own spawn took me out. After everything I’ve done for you?”

”I’m not your spawn, Mr. Stark.”

”Not according to you. Remember last weekend, when you called me dad?”

”You mean when I said I was hungry, and you said, _‘Hi hungry, I’m dad.’_? Because yes, I do remember that.”

”Aww,” cooed Sam, “You called _yourself_ dad? You dad-zoned yourself? How cute!” He reaches out to pinch Tony’s cheek, but the older man batted it away, still keeping one arm wrapped around Peter’s shoulders. 

“Leave me in peace, Wilson,” Tony groaned. “I just got murdered by a _teenager_.”

Clint finally joined the conversation. “If it makes you feel any better, I’m pretty sure I’m the first one he took out. You’re lucky to have lasted this long, Stark.”

”The Man of Iron took out me and Bruce right away,” Thor informed Peter. “You should be proud to win against him!”

Peter grinned at Thor and relaxed into Tony’s chest. He felt Tony take a breath to speak before Steve split off from his conversation with Bucky to say, “Your little _hell child_ threw a paint grenade at Bucky and I. Are you sure you aren’t raising a psychopath?”

Peter looked beyond Steve to see Bucky mournfully running his fingers through his yellow paint soaked hair. It was enough to make him bite his tongue to keep himself from  giggling out loud. 

Tony squeezed his shoulders. “I’m so proud of you,” he whispered into his ear, grinning deviously at Steve.

It was moments like these that made Peter feel lucky to have gotten bit by that spider all those years ago.

Moments where their laughter was warmer than the sunlight; and Nat was rubbing paintballs into Clint’s hair; and Sam was helping Thor figure out how to use the paintball gun; and Bruce was showing Bucky how the paintball grenades worked; and Steve was playfully bickering with Tony; and Tony had his arms wrapped around Peter in an extended hug. 

It was moments like these that made Peter happy to be a part of this family. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that’s a wrap. 
> 
> For the last time: thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed, let me know if you did!
> 
> I’m starting a 5+1 Irondad Christmas fic, of which the first chapter is already up, so if you’re interested in that, then go check it out, I guess. 
> 
> Thanks once again to everyone who stuck with me through this whole, long, deeply procrastinated project. It’s been an honor to write for you.


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